Phenomenon M is an exhibition of site/context-specific contemporary artworks commissioned for Klaipėda. Curator and artist Paulina Pukytė invited twelve Lithuanian artists (one of them was invented) to explore the city of Klaipėda as a text, as a myth, as (dis)information, as representation, as a field of visual “battles”. These artistic investigations are presented to the Klaipėda residents and visitors in the form of conceptual and visual artworks in the public spaces of the city.
Phenomenon M
A city is possible. A city can be invisible (as proved by Calvino), and it can be only visible, as fata morgana in a desert. It can itself be a desert (as shown by Antonioni). Or it can be just a desire (as told by Grigory Kanovich). Even deserted by people (like Famagusta) a city remains a city. A destroyed city (like Mariupol) is still a city. A city is a text and there is no other choice but to read it. A city is a myth and there is no other choice but to believe it. A city can deceive. A city can protect. A city can entrap. A city can betray. A city is a labyrinth, perpetually demanding choices. Our choices become our history.
Phenomenon M is an exhibition of site/context-specific contemporary artworks commissioned for Klaipėda. The project seeks to take a deeper look at Klaipėda as a city first and foremost, at its history and everyday life, sociality and symbols, architecture and structure, nature and ecology, geography and psycho-geography, soul and uniqueness. The aim is also to encourage the citizens of Klaipėda to get involved in the observation, research and creation of their own city, to discover its unseen, unnoticed, forgotten, “unimportant” places and qualities, and to look at it from a different perspective and with different eyes. The city is not only about physical density, height and speed, but also about the “invisible” multi-layered and multi-directional urban culture. The city is a system, it is boundaries, borders, plans, symbols, monuments, landmarks, place names, institutions, instructions, rules, details, mistakes, fantasies. M is not only a city, but also art, science, myth, love, and, ultimately, metaphor.
There is already a K-shaped building in this city (Klaipėda), and our project has also created an M-shaped building (Memel), and, as we know, K + M = KM (hot love between different cultural traditions).
Curator and artist Paulina Pukytė invited twelve Lithuanian artists (one of them was invented) to explore the city of Klaipėda as a text, as a myth, as (dis)information, as representation, as a field of visual “battles”. These artistic investigations are presented to the Klaipėda residents and visitors in the form of conceptual and visual artworks in the public spaces of the city.
Participating artists:
Sofija Baldauskaitė (M-3, M-7)
Konstantinas Bogdanas (M-12)
Auridas Gajauskas (M-15, M-16)
Agnė Gintalaitė (M-5)
Laima Kreivytė (M-18)
Juozas Laivys (M-4, M-17)
Tomas Martišauskis (M-8)
Liucija Teodora Mikučionytė (M-9, M-10, M-13)
Paulina Pukytė (M-1, M-11)
Jurga Šarapova (M-2)
Viktorija Juzefa Venckutė (M-6, M-14)
Curator Paulina Pukytė
Organiser: Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre.
Funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Klaipėda City Municipality.