Deimantas Narkevicius

After a few seconds of cinematic silence, the voice of a small girl bounces off the screen. This invisible child re-tells – in Lithuanian – the founding legend of the city of Vilnius, as concocted by romantic 19th century historians…

The Baltic Times

Interview with the artist

Seitdem er Litauen auf der 49. Biennale in Venedig 2001 vertreten hat, ist der Film- und Videokünstler Deimantas Narkevicius international kein Unbekannter mehr…

In his films, Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevičius deals with the experience of collective—usually Eastern European—history. In the politically and culturally turbulent situation in Eastern European states since the 1990s, Narkevičius currently sees a vacuum in which ideological self-awareness is characterized neither by a reflection of one’s own history, nor by any kind of vision for the future. Narkevičius constructs (past and future) history out of active relations with individual biographies. In this way, the protagonists of his films reconstruct and interweave their memories with a linear concept of history generally accepted as true. Narkevičius explores the medium of film using a documentary approach, in which, for example, interviews heard as voices-off comment on photographs or drawings, and diverse film techniques and narrative styles are used simultaneously. At the Secession, Deimantas Narkevičius is showing four of his most recent films…

Works in the TATE collection