Category: visual arts.

Authors: Paulius and Svajonė Stanikas.

Paulius and Svajonė Stanikas are contemporary Lithuanian artists, who work and live in Lithuania and France, regularly representing Lithuania at a number of prestigious world exhibitions and projects, among them the 50th Venice Biennale, the Vu Gallery and Pompidou Centre in Paris, New York’s White Box Gallery and the Beijing Biennale. After a successful debut in Venice, the Stanikases taught at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains.

Photos from artists' personal archive

Works by Paulius and Svajonė Stanikas are appealing not only because of their large format, but also because of their eclecticism. Oftentimes their works compel society to doubt the border created between polyphonic reality and the “inner empire” (David Lynch), which is why it is not always appropriate to explain them on the basis of regular logic. A historical concentration is created in their works, oftentimes accompanied by certain forms of uncomfortable bodily and sexual perversions. In the works of the Stanikases, one can distinguish some of their more significant projects and exhibits. Of particular importance to their work is the trilogy “World War” (2003), “Inferno” (2004), and “The End of Millenium” (2005). 2008 saw their diptych “The Fall” displayed at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, paraphrasing the classic theme of a fatal passion for power and the flesh, which is conveyed by using references to the brutal stories of death of three “iconic” couples of the 20th century – Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, and Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu.

Webpage www.stanikas.com