Kempinas – who lives in New York City, and was born in Plunge/Lithuania in 1969 – became familiar to an international public at the latest with the Venice Biennale of 2009. Currently, the Tinguely Museum in Basel is devoting a major survey exhibition to his work. With mastery, this artist unites principles of Constructivism, Minimalism, Op Art, and Kineticism. In 2007, these qualities made him the recipient of the Calder Prize. Kempinas has realized his most recent work, entitled DARKROOM, in situ in the Laboratory, the project room of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, as a confrontation with the proportions and other concrete characteristics of the space.

DARKROOM is on view simultaneously with the exhibition Alexander Calder: Avant- Garde in Motion (Sept 07, 2013 to Jan 12, 2014) at the K20 Grabbeplatz. Marion Ackermann, the Director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, has juxtaposed Calder’s achievement – that of a classical modernist and co-discoverer of kinetic art – with that of a younger artist who in some of his works revisits kinetic aspects in his own way. In his new installation Kempinas invites the visitor to move between his constructions and ponder his process of perception – eventually making viewers reflect upon their relationship to the object.