In Čiurlionis Gym, DIY gym equipment is placed on a square blue carpet where workout sessions take place several times a day. The installation is based on the artist’s own experience at the National M.K. Čiurlionis School of Art in Lithuania. Augustas Serapinas’s education was largely based on the development of technical skills such as drawing, sculpting, and painting through copying nature and making plaster copies of ancient Greek sculptures. For Čiurlionis Gym, he goes back to his school archives to make copies of his own works and plaster models, which he then uses in a fully functioning gym. The work questions the premises of an art education based on copying by comparing it to the gym workout – both of which are based on repetitive actions and hard work. Augustas Serapinas (born 1990 in Vilnius) tells stories of places, people, and site-specific memories in his installations. His work is characterized by a spontaneous and above all intense engagement with his immediate surroundings. Serapinas lives and works in Vilnius. (official description)

Augustas Serapinas: Čiurlionis Gym, 2023 / Art Basel 2023 Unlimited. Basel (Switzerland), June 14, 2023.

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