Žilvinas Kempinas
Flying tape, 2004

Fan, magnetic tape, steel, dimensions variable.
Courtesy of Galerie Frey.

In Flying tape, 2004, the magnetic tape floats to the noise of industrial fans, creating random forms that give the works a marvelous hypnotic lightness. Whereas for Parallels, presented in 2007 at Vilnius Contemporary Art Centre, tape fixed in parallel lines beneath the ceiling of the exhibition space gives the piece the sensation of an infinite horizon, subtly changing and drawing on the contrast between black and white, stillness and movement, like a mirror inverting space.

Mobile sculptures, site-specific installations, the creation of sensations linked to movement and light –all these elements seem to connect Zilvinas Kempinas’s work to the experimentations of 1950s and 1960s kinetic art. But Zilvinas Kempinas pushes the investigation on the visible to an extreme. In effect, what is impressive and disconcerting is the way in which he manages to make us feel the limits, the tipping point of the work: from its inception to its collapse, its disappearance. As a symbol of high technology fighting the law of gravity, un-spooled videotape appears more like a poetic gesture than a conventional art object.

In Kempinas’ works, light often becomes an integral part of the piece, air circulation provides structure, and banal videotape is used as a sculptural material instead of as media. While using unusual and minimal means of expression, Kempinas constructs monumental and visually stimulating installations that focus on the direct interaction with viewers and their experience of movement in a space.

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