Deimantas Narkevičius (born 24 May 1964 in Utena, Lithuanian SSR) is one of the most consistent and widely recognised Lithuanian artists on the international art scene. Originally trained as a sculptor, Narkevičius has mainly worked with film and video. Employing documentary footage, voice-overs, interviews, re-enactments and found photographs, his films submit historical events to the narrative structures of storytelling and cinema. In his artistic practice Narkevičius examines the relationship of personal memories to political histories, particularly those of his native Lithuania. For the artist, history itself has become both material and methodology.
Since 1992 Narkevičius has exhibited extensively in important contemporary art venues and events worldwide, including Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Tate Modern (London), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). He represented Lithuania at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001 and two years later exhibited at the 50th Venice Biennale in Utopia Station curated by Molly Nesbit and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Narkevičius's work was shown at Manifesta II (Luxembourg, 1998) and Manifesta X (St. Petersburg, 2014). Amongst his most recent solo shows are 20 July.2015 at Maureen Paley (London, 2017), Books on Shelves and Without Letters at The Blank Contemporary Art (Bergamo, 2016), Archeology of Memories at former KGB building (Riga, 2015). Narkevičius's major retrospective opens at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius, Lithuania, in December 2017.
Narkevičius's works are a part of major private and public collections such as Tate Modern (London), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Modern Art Museum (Vilnius). In 2008 for his achievements in art Narkevičius has been awarded the Vincent Award and the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts. His film Restricted Sensation (2011) was a nominee for the best short feature at the 2012 Silver Crane film awards.
Narkevičius lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Biography
Childhood in Utena
Deimantas Narkevičius was born in Utena, Lithuania, in 1964 at the time when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union.
In several interviews such as the 2003 interview with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Narkevičius reflected on the importance of films he saw in his early childhood. His first experience of cinema was watching movies with his parents in the theatre or at home on television. Films by prominent Soviet directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, in particular his Ivan Grozny, Part II (1958), which he saw at the age of five, and Bronenosec Potiomkin (1925), were among his earliest cinematic experiences that in Narkevičius's own words had a dramatic impact on him.
Later in early adolescence Narkevičius familiarised himself even further with the cinema of his time by seeing Sergei Parajanov's Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967), which again had a significant impact on the young artist. It was then that he became fascinated with the films produced in the studios of the Soviet republics, which revealed local identities, traditions and languages. In another interview from 2011 Narkevičius described technological and stylistic aspects of Parajanov's film that moved him as a young person:
Growing up Narkevičius was often ill which meant he had to stay home. As a result, he spent a considerable amount of time watching Soviet television. The documentary material on 16mm film used on TV in the 1970s made an impression on Narkevičius, who later used the same type of film extensively in his artistic practice. Interviews were filmed with 16mm cameras and were then processed and made ready for the evening news on the same day. Since they were done in quite a rush, it provoked considerable experimentation. These films were screened and then broadcast, raising a range of possibilities for using film. Narkevičius, who grew familiar with these images, admitted to the ingenuity of their production and the effect it had on him even after many years: "I sometimes look back at them, and I see how creative they were – how creative the camerawork and the editing was".
The early influences of cinema and television describe Narkevičius's artistic style and means of production. They can potentially be seen as a factor that affected his decision of selecting filmmaking as opposed to object making early in his career. The history and context of the Soviet Union in which these early experiences were produced had become the principal subject of Narkevičius's oeuvre.