Labyrinthus (su defektu)

„Labyrinthus“ by Dainius Liškevičius was first presented in Vilnius in 2014. In the great hall of the Contemporary Art Centre, a square plan structure was built from dark grey plasterboards and divided into 16 rooms. Objects composed from everyday things, printed materials and discoveries stood in each room; they were protected by glass cases, and the walls were decorated with photographs of mountains and interiors. On entering the labyrinth, viewers were transported from ordinary space into the territory of imagination and dreams. A book of quotations suggesting the artist’s itinerary helped them to find their way (or maybe misled them). The totality of the installation and texts created an illogical narrative linking human existence to history and cosmic processes, drawing a projection of eternity.
This book is a new version of the labyrinth. Its first part is the book Labyrinthus, which was constructed by Dainius Liškevičius as a viewer’s guide through the installation, and has become a literary readymade here. The second part of the book offers a chance to enter the gallery of colour images where things have been hidden and to wander around the rooms of the labyrinth. The third part is a textual labyrinth.

Art critic Agnė Narušytė deciphers the rebuses of things by using the book of quotations, but does not give the answers away. Artist and writer Paulina Pukytė solves the riddles, but disorientates the reader with her new questions. Poet, essayist and playwright Rolandas Rastauskas plays a literary poker by turning the army of punctuation marks into words. In the rooms of her memories, art historian Tojana Račiūnaitė experiences the tremendum of the sacred and of death. Poet, essayist and writer Ieva Gudmonaitė looks for the exit not only from this labyrinth but also from that of art. Philosopher Tadas Zaronskis and art critic Karolina Rybačiauskaitė discover a meta-minotaur in contemporary art. But he has always been here, and will be, as can be discovered from the play The Minotaur by the Estonian author Rein Raud (published in Lithuanian in the magazine Krantai in 1996), leading even then to Labyrinthus of Dainius Liškevičius. The texts keep bringing the reader back to the objects and thus all three parts form a multi-layered narrative. One may go to that journey while listening to the song The Mountain Saga (1972), which can be accessed on YouTube by using the link at the beginning of the book.