Eglė Budvytytė: Warm Blooded and Earthbound

Curator: Céline Poulin

Warm Blooded and Earthbound is Eglė Budvytytė’s first exhibition in France at the Frac Île-de-France—as part of the France-Lithuania Season—and marks a new stage in her work and research process. A leading Lithuanian artist on the international scene, she extends her mainly video or performative practice to songs, poetry and installation. Budvytytė’s recent works explore the body’s involvement with the landscape, via movement and vulnerability. In her practice, a distinctive form of living together emerges, marked by alteration and care, and a different relationship with the elements and environment.

This exhibition  presents a new film installation by Eglė Budvytytė, exploring intimacies between the land and the body. The work delves into themes of ritual, death, clay, care and community. Set against Lithuanian landscapes, the film traverses river shores and various limestone and clay quarries, dissolving the hierarchy between body and landscape to better understand them as deeply intertwined.

The choreographed scenes and song lyrics draw inspiration from multiple sources, including the twentieth-century Lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas’ research and theories on Neolithic matrilineal societies, focusing on their burial rituals and the non-separability between the sacred and the everyday. 

Eglė Budvytytė (b. 1981, Lithuania) is an artist based in Amsterdam and Vilnius working at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for a possible subversion of normativity, gender and social roles and for dominant narratives governing public spaces. 

Her work was shown amongst others at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2022, Italy), Vleeshal, Middelburg (Netherlands) Riga International Biennial of Contemporary art (RIBOCA, Latvia); Renaissance Society, Chicago (US), Lofoten International Art festival (Norway); Block Universe festival, London (UK); Art Dubai commissions (United Arab Emirates); Liste, Art Basel (Switzerland); 19th Biennale of Sydney (Australia); De Appel Arts Centre (Netherlands); CAC in Vilnius (Latvia), and Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Egle was resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France, 2012) and at Wiels, Contemporary art centre (Brussels, Belgium, 2013).