Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas (b. 1996, Chicago, USA) currently lives and works between Berlin and Vilnius. He has participated in the 2024 Artists’ Film International program, was nominated for the 2023 CIRCA Prize, and won the JCDecaux Prize in 2021. This year, Meno Niša Gallery successfully presented his work at international art fairs in Copenhagen and Antwerp.
Curator Povilas Gumbis:
V. Aukščiūnas’ artistic practice, which encompasses the media of installation, sculpture, film, and performance, is based on the methodological opposition of the latter two. The former is dominated by a directorial point of view, a tendency to have full control of the material throughout the process. In the case of performance, the original creative vision has to come to terms with the dynamism of the space, embrace the inherent vulnerability that comes with it. This tension results in queer temporality, an alternative rhythm of being, characterized by cycles, interruptions, and pauses; or returns to the same creative motifs, endless recontextualizations of the details that constitute them.
In the case of D. V. Aukščiūnas, the main recurring elements revolve around physical intimacy, the search for transgressive sensations that liberate the body’s potential for self-expression, allowing it to become whatever and whenever she (he) wants to be. The interplay between directorial control and the openness of the act becomes the creative material that shapes shifting identities, relationships, and perceptions of time.