Installation: Tube

"Tube" by Žilvinas Kempinas, 2009

On exhibit at the Lithuanian Pavilion of Scuola Grande della Misericordia

in Cannaregio, Venice, Italy for the 53rd Venice Biennale

Tube is a work that creates a dramatic enclosed walkway over 80 feet long from stretched lengths of old VHS videotape. The work is one of the latest in a series employing Kempinas’ signature medium of unspooled magnetic tape, works that have inventively exploited the strength and ultra-lightweight nature of tape to create beguiling and seemingly contradictory physical spectacles that skillfully subvert relationships with architecture, form, and space.

Zilvinas was chosen to represent Lithuania by an independent committee from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and presented this installation at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a majestic Renaissance building designed by architect Jacopo Sansovino in the 16th century

   

Tube was created in Atelier Calder, Saché, France and then was set up for the Lithuanian pavilion in Venice, 2009. Tube installation offers an optical experience to the viewer creating lots of different moire visual effects, and as well as a perception of the body and architecture. Zilvinas Kempinas says:

"I am attracted to things that are capable of transcending their own banality and materiality to become something else, something more. I like the way that videotape is simultaneously delicate and durable, since it’s meant to last. I can rip it easily with my hands because it’s so thin, but I can also stretch it. Videotape is made to present the world in color, but it appears purely black. It’s supposed to be this safe container of the past, but it is destined to vanish like a dinosaur, to become obsolete, pushed away by new technologies. It’s a familiar mass-produced commodity, but it can be surprisingly sensual and can look almost alive if set in motion. It can be seen as a solid, thick, black line, but it can also disappear right in front of your eyes if it’s turned on its side"