 Oh those Lithuanians! The humor! The wit! The unfailing insight! What will they think of next?
In 2000, the director of Lithuania’s Europos Parkas, the open air sculpture museum, created the largest sculpture in the country. And it was made of- ready?- TV sets! There are 3000 of those suckers (the sculpture is still in place) formed into a 700 meter labyrinth. It’s even recognized in the Guiness Book of World Records.
The TVs, mostly Eastern Euopean models, were all donated,. The sculptor, Gintaras Karosas, pronounced it “a symbolic burial of Communism.” A statue of Lenin, rescued from the rubbish heap of history, marks the center of the labyrinth. The TVs themselves are stacked in long wooden cases that form a narrow (to reflect the limitations of TV used for propaganda) twisting maze that looks like a tree from above. Hence its official name- LNK Infotree.
Karosas isn’t the only artist using TVs as raw material, but he is one of the few that don’t succumb to using them to run tapes as part of his installation. And is he one of the few whose work is meant to be viewed outdoors. Nam June Paik is, of course, the most famous of the TV/video sculptors. But he always runs the machines while they’re in place. The flickering pix become part of the sculpture itself.
(Photo from the europos parkas website)
6:08:17 PM 
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