Žilvinas Kempinas

Lithuania, 1969

Contemporary visual artist. He lives and works in New York City. Zilvinas Kempinas studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts during the time when Lithuania was one of the first republics to declare sovereignty from the Soviet Union in 1990. He graduated from the Academy in 1993. Kempinas exhibited works that merged paintings, sculptures, performance art and installations. He collaborated with Oskaras Koršunovas and created set designs for The Old Woman 2, Hello Sonia New Year, The Flying Dutchman, and PS Byla OK which won him the 1998 Kristoforas Award for Best Drama Theater Stage Design.

Kempinas moved to New York at the end of 1997 and received an MFA in combined media from Hunter College, City University of New York in 2002. His first New York show took place at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in 2003. In 2007, Kempinas was featured by Art Review Magazine as one of its ‘Future Greats’. In the same year, he was awarded the Calder Prize and a residency at Atelier Calder in Saché, France. In 2008, the artist exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and, in 2009, in a solo show at the Kunsthalle, Vienna. In 2009, Kempinas represented Lithuania at the Venice Biennale 53rd International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy. In 2012, Kempinas was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts.