Karmagedon

Two hundred horses mix steel and blood. While hundreds of stones receive blessed chiselled names, A gang of angels circles in the garage, Chalk on the wall, and clouds of exhaust, The river sweats oil and tar. Liudmila Vaišnoraitė, 2023 Liudmila is the alter ego of two(?) artists. Their work spans different media, from music and video works to sculptures and performances. Their often-associative works echo broad thematic affinities, emotional expressions and collective memory. In the exhibition Karmagedon, Liudmila takes an anxious look into the relationship between desire and reality, the enchantments of consumerism and mass culture, and deceptive promises. The somewhat bittersweet show intertwines dystopian motifs, self-doubt and anxiety with escapism and windiness. The collective interdisciplinary art project Liudmila was initiated by two young-generation artists, Miša Skalskis and Milda Januševičiūtė. In their work, the duo focuses on the themes of emotional well-being, intimacy, alienation, and loneliness. Liudmila has presented their works in the competition-exhibition "JCDecaux Prize: Not at Anyone's Request" at the Contemporary Art Centre (LT), where they won the Audience Choice Award, as well as at the WET Collective digital platform (NL) and the 68th Oberhausen Film Festival (DE). In 2021, Liudmila released an audio compilation under the same title, "Liudmila"; that same year, they also created the sculptural video installation "fountain", presented in the exhibition "Thickeners" curated by Adomas Narkevičius. Their performances have been presented at the Cell Project Space in London (2023), Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki (2022), the 14th Baltic Triennial in Vilnius (2021), and the Rupert centre for art, residencies and education in Vilnius (2020). The opening of the exhibition was assisted by Paulius Janušonis and Eglė Trimailovaitė. Special thanks to: Neringa Černiauskaitė, Monika Janulevičiūtė, Vitalija Jasaitė, Ona Juciūtė, Laura Kaminskaitė, Urte Katiliūtė, Viktor Lacuk, Robert Skalskis, Dovilė Stalioraitytė, Antanas Stanislauskas, Kasparas Starinskas, Man Yau, Gazpar Zondov The exhibition is supported by Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality. The exhibition is part of the programme of the 700th anniversary of Vilnius. Translated by Alexandra Bondarev