Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus

Media Artist & Critic

BIOGRAPHY

Photo by Alina Ožič (LŽ).

Prof. Ph. D. R. Venckus is an art critic and media artist. In 2014 he defended his doctoral dissertation in the humanities, ‘Jacques Derrida Deconstruction Theory in Video Art Analysis’, at Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute.

Academic Activities

Ph. D. R. Venckus is a Professor at the Department of Graphical Systems of the Faculty of Fundamental Sciences of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. He is the author of 18 scientific articles, 5 research reports presented in international conferences and 20 research reports presented in republican scientific conferences.

Previously he worked as Associate Professor and Head at the Department of Entertainment industries (faculty of Creative Industries of Vilnius Gediminas Technological University), Associate Professor of Contemporary Arts  (Faculty of Arts of Vytautas Magnus University), and Director of Creative Society and Economy Institute (Kazimieras Simonavičius University). He taught at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies (Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Vilnius University); at the Departments of Audiovisual Art and at the Fine Arts and Design (Faculty of Arts of Šiauliai University); at the Department of Design (Telšiai Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts).

Education

Doctor of Philosophy

2014 – Ph. D. in Humanities (Art Criticism, Art History), Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania.

Master's Degree

2006 – Masters degree in Humanities (Art History), Šiauliai University, Lithuania.

Bachelor's Degree

2004 – Bachelor degree in Fine Arts (Graphic Art), Šiauliai University, Lithuania.

Exchange Studies

Fine arts and design studies at Erasmus + program, Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Portugal.

Work experience

2019 – 2015

Since 2018 – Professor of arts at the Department of Graphical Systems of Vilnius Gediminas Technical  University (Vilnius, Lithuania)

 2017-2018 – Associate Professor and Head at the Entertainment Industries Department of Creative Industries Faculty of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Vilnius, Lithuania).

2015-2017 – Associate Professor and Director at Creative Society and Economy Institute of Kazimieras Simonavičius University (Vilnius, Lithuania).

2015-2017 – Associate Professor at the Department of Contemporary Arts of the Faculty of Arts of Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania). Assoc. Prof. 01-03-2015 – 31-08-2017, Lecturer 01-01-2012 – 01-03-2015.

2016 – 2008

2010-2013 – Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy and Culture Studies of Kaunas Faculty of the Humanities, Vilnius University (Kaunas, Lithuania).

2008-2016 – Art critic at the fine arts project ‘Art in Old Lithuanian Manors’. ‘Artkomas’ company (Kaunas, Lithuania).

2008-2010 – Art critic of exhibitions at ‘A Gallery’ (Panevėžys, Lithuania).

2013 – 2004

2005-2006 – Director at ‘Media Cultura’ company (Šiauliai, Lithuania).

2005-2013 – Lecturer of the Department of Audiovisual Arts at Faculty of Arts, Šiauliai University (Šiauliai, Lithuania).

2005 – Art critic and curator of the Department of Photography at the ‘Aušra’ Museum (Šiauliai, Lithuania).

2004-2005 – Assistant Lecturer of the Design Department at Telšiai Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts (Telšiai, Lithuania).

2004-2005 – Web designer of the ‘Infonida’ Department, ‘Nida’ company (Šiauliai, Lithuania).

Since 2018 Professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

2015 – 2018 working experience in the field of management and administration studies

2014 –2017 Assoc. Prof at Vytautas Magnus University

Since 2004 growing working experience in the field of high education

Media Artist Activities

Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus is also a media artist usually engaged in the art of photography. The main theme of creation comprises memory, time and personal experience as well as the male body and sexuality interpretations. In 2010 he represented Lithuania in the international erotic visual art exhibition (National Museum in Poland). He participated in 30 international exhibitions and 41 republican exhibitions, set up 50 solo exhibitions in Lithuania, two in Poland, two in Germany, one in Latvia.

Delivered 55 solo exhibitions

Participant in 71 group exhibitions

Art Critic Activities

Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus is known in Lithuania as an art critic engaged in reviewing contemporary art exhibitions and writing about painting, photography and video art. His critical reviews on well-known Lithuanian and Western artists make an integral part of exhibitions held not only in Lithuania but also in Denmark, Poland, Russia, USA, Latvia, etc. Since 2008 he has been an art critic of ‘Art in Old Lithuanian Manors’, the International Festival of Fine Arts (festival was closed at 2016).

Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus is the author of 370 critical articles on art and culture. He is the author of the first textbook on video art in the Lithuanian language (‘Video Art Deconstruction’, 2008.). He is a co-author of a methodological publication for creative work using audio-visual aids in the education of people with disabilities (‘Creativity and Social Integration’, 2009).

Critical essays about art and culture

Curator of international art and media festivals

Curator of local art and media festivals

In creation I always focus on the analysis of media as a technology. I am doing my best to reinvent the media as a new tool, which helps me to clearly express the personal position on time, space and memory. The purpose of my creation is questioning the memory to get an answer to ‘who is a human being nowadays?’


Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus

media artist & critic

Prof. Ph. D. R. Venckus. About Favourite Things

In all my life I have been focussing on my academic and artistic career. Most of my favourite things are related to my profession. At the end of 2014, after my Ph. D. defence, I started allotting more time to my hobbies. From time to time I keep thinking more about things that I really like.

Books and Writings

Good books is a very high priority with me at present. In my study time I was reading more scientific books because of my Ph. D. Now, I can read novels slowly and think attentively about every meaning of the sentences and words. I prefer philosophical novels, which provoke my imagination to flow into a visionary world of ideas. A good book gets me to think about separate scenarios and present new thoughts in the form of fiction. Today I have already written about 100 pages of a text in my inner visual world. I hope my writings will be published in separate books in a few years.

I enjoy having talks and interviews with some professionals from different fields of activities: artists, critics, scientists, culture activists, etc. The results of this hobby have been published in my hometown weekly for two years each Friday. The interviews make my views much wider and critical.

Music & Cinema

I possess superb a record collection – over 200 vinyls of Jazz and experimental music. Some of the records have become historical now. I have been obsessed by experimental jazz since my teenager time. Good music is a kind of meditation for me and I cannot imagine a human’s life without music sounds.

The Sci-Fi cinema affects me in the same way as music. In the period of my Master’s studies I had a great interest in the silent cinema. I have been watching classical movies and read books about it. I have been spending a lot of hours on the classical Italian, German, Swedish, USA, Russian and Lithuanian movies lately. The power of a good cinema makes me enjoy it as a hobby.

Travel Anthropology

At the beginning of 2018, I became interested in writing reports in the form of travel anthropology. The phenomenon of travelling is very important to me as a critical form of thinking. It verifies my attention to values in different societies as well as my daily life space too. I hope my hobby of writing may develop into an activity of journalism.

Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus. From the cycle ‘The Way of Ethiopia’ No. 416, 2018
Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus. From the cycle ‘Amnesia Film’. ‘Gaze’ 2013

There are lot of other things I like, but most of them are related to my occupation at present. I spend much time photographing, delivering public seminars, tutoring and managing art exhibitions, visiting museums and galleries, watching performances art, taking part in discussions with artists and culture activists, etc.

Prof. Ph. D. R. Venckus. On Future Prospects

My favourite things and career are related to art criticism and creation of media arts at present. For this reason, my future prospects will continue the activities I started many years ago and which I have been engaged in all my life.

Photography has been a most important activity in my artistic evolution. I have been delivering the visual language of mine since 2002. In future, nothing is going to change too much. On the one hand, I will continue focussing on the time, memory and space analysis, on the another hand, I would like to improve and develop my own visual language based on the research of media technologies.

The previous few years have been too intensive for me but quite productive. I arranged quite a number of my personal photo exhibitions in Lithuania (50 exhibitions within 2002-2019) and a few in Poland, Germany and Latvia. I have already decided that 2019 will be the last year of my artistic activities in the galleries and museums of Lithuania. I would like to direct all my power to words developing a personal galleries network abroad to exhibit all my art on the international stage from the beginning of 2019. However, I am inclined take some part in the Lithuanian art stage, but not so intensely as before.

Prof. Ph. D. Remigijus Venckus. From the cycle ‘Amnesia Film’. ‘The Time’ 2014

I have delivered six male nudes photo exhibitions in Lithuania and one in Poland since 2009. At present, I would like to develop the topic of male nudes more intensively and attentively, studying the male body in contrast to interiors and motion. However, I would also like to turn back to the history of photography and moving images, and go back to Eadweard Muybridge’s studies of motion in humans’ bodies. Following Muybridge, I might recall a pure interest in the physiology of the body.

I created video art from the early 2002 till 2013 but at present I have had no time to continue working on video for the last four years. However, my video has been rediscovered by German art curators and artists, and successfully presented on the art stage in Berlin. In future, I am inclined to spend more time on video creation and I would like transfer my photography ideas to moving images.

In Lithuania, I have been known as an art critic. I hope that I’ll continue my activities and publish some new critical texts on the subject. In edition, for many years I have been cherishing an idea to publish several books. Firstly, I have been writing many texts on painting, thus, I would like to revise all these publications and write a book, ‘A Philosophy of Painting’. Secondly, I have been delivering many interviews about contemporary culture and media, which I would like to revise once again and write another book, ‘The Views of Culture’. Thirdly, from time to time I enjoy fiction, and now I have already finished about 150 pages of an essay-novel; thus, I would like to make my debut as a writer.

In my academic field, I would not like to change much. I hope that in the next few years,  I’ll visit Universities all over the world. I am going to deliver workshops and public lectures, which could help me to develop the synergy between the theories I am writing, art being created and lectures delivered all the time. I hope that the synergy will help me to display my competences and acquire a strong position in the international academic field.

Would you like to know more about my academic activities?