Character
Portrait

Paulina Eglė Pukytė

Vilnius, Lithuania 11-04-1966

Period of activity: From 2002 until Still active

Geographical classification: Europe > Lithuania

Socio-cultural movements

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Literary and cultural movements since the end of the 19th century > Post-war literature > Experimental literature

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Literary and cultural movements since the end of the 19th century > Literature since the last third of the 20th century

Groups by dedication

Writers > Poets

Writers > Dramatists / Playwrights

Writers > Essayists

Writers > in > Lithuanian

Plastic, visual and performing artists

Writers > Story writers

Context of feminine creation

Pukytė is a wide profile artist known not only as a writer but also as a creator of interdisciplinary art. Her literary and visual creativity features collage and montage techniques which put forth unexpected meanings in a head-on battle of opposites lying at the core of her artistic texts (social hierarchies, marginalisation of women, communication errors, etc.). Pukytė creates a fragmented but continuous narrative from phrases and quotes overheard in public (A Loser and a Do-gooder, Lupin and Serradella).

Her ironic, humorous and critical works question and twist accustomed truths and deconstruct socio-ideological myths and socio-cultural clichés. Her art strategies are often consciously restrained, almost invisible. She is drawn to the marginal and even banal, rehabilitating what is seemingly unimportant and ‘inferior’ but terribly human. 

Pukytė’s works also belong with most recent Lithuanian writings about emigration and mobility starkly dominated by female writers: Dalia Staponkutė, Zita Čepaitė, Aušra Matulevičiūtė, Neringa Abrutytė, Vaiva Rykštaitė, Agnė Žagrakalytė and others, with one notable exception of the Paris-based male author, Valdas Papievis.

Review

In 2017, Pukytė curated the 11th Kaunas Biennial, an international exhibition of site-specific monuments and non-traditional commemoration. In her visual art practice, she creates still and moving images and interventions, making use of the uncovered artefacts such as objects, images and texts, and building paradoxical stories and juxtapositions that invert conventional meanings. Pukytė’s writing is characterised by taking seemingly insignificant life episodes or phenomena out of their usual context and changing or reversing their meaning. In her own words, ‘non-communication (not in life, but in art) creates non-understandings, or – even more interestingly – misunderstandings and at the same time, new meanings and ambiguity’ (Paulina Pukytė). 

Justifications

  • - Pukytė is a most original contemporary Lithuanian artist who crosses the boundaries of literary genres and creates unique interdisciplinary art through balancing between literature and arts projects.
  • - Pukytė’s creative strategy utilises a ready-made method, whereby the texts of other writers are remade through montage and collage (e.g., the play Daughter-in-law staged in 2018).
  • - Her book A Loser and a Do-gooder was staged in the Vilnius Small Theatre (2015) and its excerpts were published in the anthology Best European Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016).
  • - Pukytė makes use of the interdependence of meaning-meaninglessness-quotation-banality to examine gender stereotypes, current myths, the national identity as well as disintegration of language and civilization, the characteristics of mentality of the modern society, the concept of freedom and its absence. A special feature of her literary strategy is inter- and meta-textuality, which is based on restructuring of existing texts and narratives.

Biography

Pukytė was born on 11 April 1966 in Vilnius. She graduated from Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts in 1990 and obtained a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London. Pukytė creates interdisciplinary art. She has been writing critical and satirical comments for the weekly newspaper 7 meno dienos (7 Days of Art) and other cultural titles since 2005. In addition, she writes experimental prose and poetry. In 2015, her book A Loser and a Do-gooder was staged in the Vilnius Small Theatre (director Gabrielė Tuminaitė). Excerpts from this book were published in the anthology Best European Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016). Pukytė also wrote a play Marti (Daughter-in-law) based on the famous story by another Lithuanian writer Žemaitė (staged in 2018, director Gabrielė Tuminaitė). In 2021, one more of her plays, Scylla Wants to Be a Human, was turned into a performance at the same theatre (directed by Gabriele Tuminaitė). In 2017, Pukytė curated the Kaunas Contemporary Art Biennale There Is and There Is Not: The Question of the (Im)possibility of a Monument. Currently, she lives and works in London and Vilnius.

 

https://rasytojai.lt/rasytojai/pukyte-paulina-egle/

http://www.pukyte.com/

Works


  • Jų papročiai (Their Habits) – Vilnius, 2005
  • Netikras zuikis (Fake Rabbit) (essay) – Vilnius, 2008
  • Bedalis ir labdarys: dialogai ir monologai (A Loser and a Do-gooder: Dialogues and Monologues) (short prose) – Vilnius, 2013
  • Žuvies akys (Fish Eyes) (play) – Vilnius, 2014
  • Lubinas ir seradėlė (Lupin and Serradella) (poems) – Vilnius, 2021

Bibliography

Kreivytė, L. (2012). O kas už kampo? Pokalbis su Paulina Egle Pukyte. 7 meno dienos.

https://www.7md.lt/tarp_disciplinu/2012-11-30/O-kas-uz-kampo 

[Accessed 16/12/2022].

Tumasonytė, J. (2014). Bežemių transliacijos naujausioje Paulinos Pukytės prozoje. Šiaurės Atėnai.

http://www.satenai.lt/2014/05/13/bezemiu-transliacijos-naujausioje-paulinos-pukytes-prozoje/

[Accessed 16/12/2022].

Vasiliauskas, S. (2021). Paulina Pukyte: To me art, including writing, is a game, a provocation. Vilnius Review. 

https://vilniusreview.com/interviews/485-paulina-pukyte-to-me-art-including-writing-is-a-game-a-provocation

[Accessed 12/12/2022].

Didactic approach

Didactic approach: Lithuanian literature

Documents