Preview
The Lithuanian artist Augustas Serapinas (*1990) is realising a new space-specific installation at the Art Museum Graubünden whose point of departure is a historical bathhouse in Vilnius. As early as 2021 the artist took apart that abandoned wooden house and put it together again in a new location in Lithuania. For an exhibition in Holland in 2022 he converted it into a teahouse. In a next step Serapinas burnt the wood of the house in order to make bricks of soap and cement from the ashes. In our rooms he is finally creating a sculpture out of the hundred bricks that represent an impressive furnace, and he is installing it on the former floor of the house. In the eyes of Serapinas, abandoned houses are living monuments like those also found in Graubünden. They tell of migration and the search for a better life. Contrary to traditional monuments that are placed on high pedestals, these constructions, however, remain unnoticed. Serapinas directs our attention to the invisible cultural heritage by showing popular traditions as something that can be formed and changed.