Raila Artūras

g. 1962

Artūras Raila was born in 1962 in Rainaičiai (Panevėžys region). He lives and works in Vilnius, where he teaches at Photography and media department of Vilnius Academy of Fine Art. After graduating from the Sculpture department of Vilnius Academy of Fine Art in 1989, Artūras Raila changed his artistic direction towards objects, installations, video and performances. The tactics of social sculpture/social design are characteristic to the artistic practice of Artūras Raila. In his projects he closely collaborates with specific social groups or sub-cultures, integrating them into the script of his forthcoming work and also leaving the space for unexpected occurrences. A.Raila‘s works are linked to the discourses of institutional critique and national identity. The artist integrates social reality into the field of art thus eliminating the boundaries between art and life.

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"Once you pop, you can't stop", 1997.

"It's a great and difficult task for an artist to dub a motorcycle...a motorcycle...", 1997-1998. Installation.

"We or nobody (cancelled)", 1998.

"The girl is innocent", 1998-1999.Video, 17 minutes, rolling English subtitles .

"The artist spent the money allocated for the realisation of his work on hiring on four unemployed men whom he met outside the employment bureau", 2001.Mixed media, featuring four men.

"Under the flag". Synchronised two channel video installation, 20 minutes.

"Forever lacking and never quite enough", 2001-2003. Synchronised three channel video installation, 36 minutes.

"Primitive sky", 2002. Five images as video and photography.

"Made ikn Panevėžys in the 60s", 2003. Mixed media.

"Roll over museum/Live", 2004. Mixed media, featuring street drag practitioners, motorheads Saulius Stepulis, Vytautas Bilinskas, Vytautas Stakauskas and Ričardas Žilinskas.

"Power of the earth", 2005-2007

Performance, featuring the bikers' club "Crazy in the Dark". During a performance festival the bikers were driving through the exhibition rooms on the ground floor of CAC Vilnius.

Two channel video installation (1997-1998). Video footage of "Once You Pop, You Can't Stop" coupled with a quotation from CAC director Kęstutis Kuizinas.

Mixed media, featuring Mindaugas Murza and the Lithuanian National Workers' Union (1998). For the exhibition "Cool Places" at CAC Vilnius the artist suggested an information desk for a radical right-wing political party from Šiauliai in northern Lithuania. This project was cancelled. A 'cancelled' poster was exhibited. An opening parade of drummers and pom-pom girls was staged on the CAC roof. The parade was repeated inside the exhibition.

Slightly edited footage of a teachers' conference at a secondary school for the arts in Vilnius where the artist was working at the time.

In the "Walls for NATO" exhibition at CAC Vilnius no work was allowed to protrude more than 50 cm from the wall. A line was drawn 50 cm from the wall, and the men patrolled it in shifts.

Synchronised two channel video installation, featuring Mindaugas Murza and the Lithuanian National Workers' Union (1999-2000). One channel is footage from Linz, Austria, during the 1999 elections that launched the Austrian People's Party into the government. It is overwritten with translations into English or German of comments by members of the Lithuanian National Workers' Union. Their reactions to the footage can be seen and heard in Lithuanian on the other channel.

Synchronised three channel video installation. One channel is a projected montage of newsreels and short feature films from 1940-1965, when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets, the Nazis and the Soviets again. The footage was provided by the Lithuanian Sound and Image Archive. The next channel is a monitor with the talking head of Genius Strazdas, a self-taught poet reading his verse in Lithuanian. The last channel are projected scrolling intermediary translations into English or Russian.

The artist's reconstruction of celestial phenomena witnessed over the town of Telšiai in western Lithuania in the autumn of 1980. 22 years later he revisits the same spots with a video camera. The footage was digitally remastered in the Soft Image programme.

Mixed media, featuring the rock band Fisher: Liolys, Liutikas, Narvydas and Dusevičius. Video footage from a concert staged by the artist for the opening of the "24/7: Wilno-Nueva York" exhibition at CAC Vilnius, overlaid with audio narration in English by Margo Maxwell Macdonald, 33 minutes.

Four expert mechanics were invited by the artist to exhibit their customised cars at CAC Vilnius. Photographic portraits of the masters in their studios were professionally produced and presented to the protagonists. They talk about their work in a video, 17 minutes. The participants and their cars were also invited for an exhibition at Akademie der Künste in Berlin in September 2004.

The ongoing mixed media project featuring dowsers Vaclovas Mikailionis and Vilius Gibavicius also the pagan community of the Balts. According to the collected information on site by the dowsers, the geoenergetic maps were executed and used for the installation of the exhibitions in Lithuania, Austria Germany and England: Vilnius CAC, Linz OK centre for contemporary art, Berlin Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Frankfurt Kunstverein and Allenheads ACA. The displays are supported by the live performances of the participants involved.

For more information about the project visit www.raila.lt