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15 October – 18 October, 2009. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) from Vilnius realizes this year one of the Frieze Projects. Curators Kęstutis Kuizinas and Simon Rees have commissioned artist Mindaugas Navakas to create “Smash the Windows, Snatch the Crystals”, made from window frames and panes recently removed from the CAC. The marriage of a monumental sculpture and material from a famous example of soviet modernist architecture is a playful reflection on ways that art forms and memories associated with history can be productively remade.

The Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, inaugurated in 1967 and designed by the Lithuanian architect Vytautas Čekanauskas, is a renowned example of soviet modernist — white cube — architecture. It is also renowned as one of the few Central and Eastern European institutions able to shed its soviet-mantle and become a truly dynamic and regionally influential contemporary exhibition venue geared toward the future.

Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Navakas has established an international reputation for redeploying monumental sculpture in a similar way: keeping its form but renovating its function. (Monuments are debased objects in former totalitarian territories). Navakas' installation "Smash the Windows, Snatch the Crystals" (2009) marries his personal concerns with the material history of the CAC — as it is constructed out of the building's original aluminium window and door frames and pane glass (that were replaced in 2008 during the CAC's first major refurbishment in 40 years).

The title of the work which sounds part agitprop catch-cry or Situationist slogan also reflects upon: Navakas' raid on the soviet archive; the structural material of the CAC; the legacy of Tatlin's Tower (which is referred to in the sculpture's appearance); and the Western fascination for 'all of the above'.

The project will be accompanied by a panel discussion “Memories, Monoliths, Monsters?”,  presented in the Frieze Talks programme, which will explore the legacies and potential of monuments and public sculptures and how monumentality in post-Soviet countries and its significance differs from the role and meaning of the monument in the West. Participants of the discussion - Mark Godfrey (curator, Tate Modern, London), Edit András (art historian and critic, Budapest), Marko Luliç (artist, Vienna), chaired by Simon Rees (senior curator CAC, Vilnius).

The project organized in collaboration with Frieze Foundation, supported by the EU Culture Programme. Opening of the project supported by the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the UK.

http://www.friezeartfair.com/visitors/