Farewells and new starts: in his video and film works, the Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevičius explores the Soviet history of the post-war period. His Video Ausgeträumt (Dream Over), which starts off the exhibition series Videozone, shows five young musicians who have formed a band with the Name Without Letters.
The images evoke a sense of time-shift. The stage is a cafeteria from the late 1950s. In this setting, the musicians perform their song Ausgeträumt. The band plays alone, completely without an audience, in a typical post-Stalinist building in the middle of a workers’ district in Vilnius – a setting that used to be the hub of social life for the local residents.
The video is interspersed with shots of snowbound roads and old housing estates. The view out of a train window, ever accelerating, shows newer residential areas of the region before it moves off into the winter landscape of Lithuania. The video communicates a unique sense of melancholia – combined with an unmistakable sense of departure towards something new.
At the opening of the Videozone exhibition, Without Letters will be giving their first international concert in Aachen. On this evening, the Ludwig Forum will become a stage for their music, which is inspired by Indie, Math Rock and Electro and oscillates between guitar sounds and electronic tones.
In the context of the Research project Videoarchiv (Video Archive), which is sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, the exhibition series Videozone will illustrate trends in contemporary video art at regular intervals.
Curated by: Miriam Lowack
Videozone: Deimantas Narkevičius, Video Stills
