Exhibition ‘Out of My Skin’ | 2021

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‘Out of My Skin’, an exhibition of works by Živilė Minkutė. In her installation, Živilė Minkutė probes the body as an inevitability, a network of one’s relationships with others, the environment, and oneself. The latter tends to be the most complicated, unfolding as an endless process of creation and reinvention, constant tension and discrepancy between one’s bodily reality and aspirations originating from within or triggered by images which relentlessly flood us.
The artist suggests that by trying to come closer to ourselves, or rather our self-image, we alter and modify our body, making all kinds of marks on it: with tattoos, piercings, clothes and haircuts, we tell stories about ourselves, communicate our values and identity, attract others’ attention to our body parts or conceal them. They are an imprint of control over one’s body, an aesthetic movement from the universal towards the exclusive (from just a body to my body). Minkutė inverts this axis: employing the body as a graphic stereoplate, she produces monotypes of skin textures that seem abstract at first yet are actually full of recognisable form, and assembles scanned images of the body into three-minute videos. The minimal, pulsating image brings the viewer close to a ritualistic and performative process that speaks of actually pressing one’s entire body against someone else’s and realizing that it is you and that is the way it will be. Focusing on bodily experiences, Out of My Skin seeks to blur the lines between media, find a new approach to graphic art, and question it through digital image capture.

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Organised by Vilnius Graphic Art Centre
Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Council for Culture, and Lithuanian Artists’ Association
Photography: Laurynas Skeisgiela