Using ordinary visual means, colour and line, Landzbergas divides a seamless space into closed territories with strict boundaries. Arranged to resemble a pitch, red and green carpeting is thus turned into a potential space of action defined by certain rules. Having entered this space, the viewer is instantly involved in a supposed action where he or she makes his or her own decision whether to stay in the "field" or to cross the touchline. This is the author's way of revealing the conventional nature of every social structure.
This installation is made up of half a skateboard ramp, a luminous letter on a signboard, a curling stone, and a part of a racing car. Once functional, all these elements turn into fragments of the perpetual everyday transit between images and things. Hermaphrodite was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite; enthralled by his beauty, the nymph Salmakis transformed him into an androgynous being. He merges into a meaningful unity things that have lost their speed, movement and beauty. Being "splinters" of excessive consumption, they do not vanish but rather are unified into a dynamic (as their elements may easily be moved to another place, or supplemented with new objects), and non-functional product. In this manner, it acquires an artistic dimension.
Frozen against a curtain, we see two gigantic figures of wrestlers after a fight. One of the figures lies on the floor, whereas the other one keeps looking tensely at his opponent. The scene looks as if it is taken straight from an American wrestling championship: it's nothing more than show, performance, with colourful costumes, personas, attributes and tricks. By transforming strong masculine figures into colourful ornamental designs and cheap mannikins, real pain is adapted to the taste and the understanding of a "society of the spectacle".
Reminding us of Claes Oldenburg's giant sculptures of mundane objects, three colourful magnified condoms made of polyurethane foam sever any connections with their original function. Synthetic colours and thick forms create a perfect marketable appearance, which is universal and easily recognisable. An intimate barrier device, with all its physiological and emotional charge, is "neutralised" to become a publicly acceptable and "comfortable" object.
This work may function as a part of the author's installations, such as "Snow Export", as well as in group exhibitions, as in "Falling into a Rabbit's Cave: Meetings with the Known" organised by the IC NGA inTartuandRiga. Incorporated into a wall (or any other surface), the work creates an illusory space that is only partly visible, and disappears behind the corner where the light is coming from. Looking at it, one may feel one is watching a segment of the unconscious that may never be fully cognised. Looking back at the exhibition, its space becomes a place where objects turn into interacting ideas.
The installation consists of several objects and details from various stories, i.e. "Cheap Magic", "Hypothecated Time", "Night-Shift", "Fir Path", "jpg./Snow Export", "DK (Diesel)", "Death's-Head". This work clearly shows the meaning of the illusory and materiality. The cheap and non-durable materials that the objects are made of (life-size crab steer being no exception) embody the sketchiness of thoughts, the principle of the reflection upon the artwork (the illusory, firm appearance is open to reconstruction), as well as the characteristics of consumer culture. In this context, the floor reminding us of Soviet times (as in "Snow Export") and the vintage crab steer acquire an element of modern folklore which represents post-Soviet (not Lithuanian) society. In this installation, the author invokes various genres of representation: a wall with perforated holes lit from the other side balances between landscape and still-life, whereas the already-mentioned crab steer reminds us more of a portrait. Conforming with the logic of dreams, a cartoon shown on a small screen constructs perpetually transforming narratives: parallel, not linear. This installation highlights realities parallel with our spatio-temporal one. From the seven existing elements, the viewer may as well set his or her own constructions of perception.
"Snow Export" is composed of a brown-and-white squared "Floor" made of compressed cardboard, two "Stumps" and one "Log" made of polyurethane foam, and "Once" colour wax crayons. The popular Soviet-period decoration of brown-and-white squares that is used as the installation's floor transforms the exhibition into a situation with its own time and space, whereas the wax crayons that have a wick instead of graphite provide the situation with yet another (fairy-tale) dimension. The pencil-form candles seem to develop the metaphor of creative ritual, in the process of which the non-functional products are designed. The logs and stumps of "Snow Export" remind us of the primordial forms ofPinocchio, the potential of a possible future product. The light blue and the lightweight foundation of polyurethane foam emphasise their cheapness and non-durability; in this way, it sneers at the apparent fragility of Eastern products.
We could say that Landzbergas creates a fairy tale of a newhomo post-sovieticus-capitalisticuspersona. Despite a determination and unwillingness to identify themselves with the implicit character, the viewers are directly involved in the world of this fairy tale.
