A minimalist art installation by Augustas Serapinas, where plaster classical busts sit atop raw, industrial metal frames resembling gym equipment. The soft, neutral color palette of white walls and plaster contrasts with the rough, dark steel. A shallow depth of field emphasizes the weathered bust of a Greek goddess in the foreground, creating a surreal collision of antiquity and athleticism.

Physical Culture: Augustas Serapinas on the Discipline of Art and the Art of Discipline

Words by Eric David

Vilnius, Lithuania

Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle famously explored the connection between a healthy mind and a healthy body. Through this lens, art galleries and gyms might be seen as complementary institutions: the one cultivating critical thinking and emotional intelligence; the other, physical strength and endurance. With his long-evolving project Physical Culture, Lithuanian artist Augustas Serapinas takes that parallel to its most literal conclusion.

In his latest solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius (Feb 22 – May 11, 2025), the largest iteration to date, the museum’s Great Hall was transformed into a fully functioning gym, albeit one in which dumbbells took the shape of plaster casts of iconic sculptures from both classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Visitors had the opportunity to use the equipment to exercise as well as practise their drawing skills courtesy of number of easels scattered among them. The result was an uncanny hybrid of studio and gymnasium: a place to train both eye and body, and to reconsider the ideals that shape them.

A pair interacts with Serapinas's sculptural gym equipment: a woman sits, holding a barbell weighted with plaster busts, while a man lies on a slanted bench below. The composition is active and confrontational, juxtaposing the vulnerability of the human body with the idealised perfection of classical sculpture. Stark white light enhances the raw, constructed materials.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

The exhibition space is dominated by a grid of dark, geometric metal structures and tripod easels, establishing a rhythmic, structural landscape. Plaster busts act as sculptural anchors, sitting on or suspended from the frames. The high, diffused light from the translucent ceiling unifies the raw, textural materials and the academic white background.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

A symmetrical, immersive view of Serapinas's exhibition shows a dense arrangement of easels, plaster busts, and industrial frames spread across the gallery floor. A large bust of a bearded god is centrally framed by dark metal. The repetitive forms and neutral palette create a sense of ordered chaos, merging the visual study of form with physical exercise.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

This wide-angle view emphasizes the elegant simplicity of the exhibition. The curved blue running track lines sweep across the white floor, encircling a concentration of dark metal structures and plaster sculptures. The vast, unadorned white wall creates a clean, minimal backdrop that amplifies the contrast between the industrial forms and the classical figures.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

First conceived in 2012, while Serapinas was still a student at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Physical Culture began as a small-scale experiment. Speaking to Yatzer, the artist explained: “The first gym I created was when I was still a student. A friend invited me to Tallinn to create a show in the art academy gallery, which was located in the sculpture department building. The space was full of student works—casts, assignments, pieces left behind. I took some of those works and made a gym out of it.” The idea was inspired by the repetitive assignments that define traditional art schooling: copying busts and still lifes, routines which he himself experienced and which he likens to gym repetitions, all leading to Serapinas questioning what kind of labour art education demands and what it actually produces.

Since that modest beginning, Physical Culture has travelled widely, appearing at Frieze London in 2016 and Unlimited at Art Basel in 2023, among other venues. It was even staged on a barge anchored in a lagoon off the Lithuanian mainland for a month during the past summer. Each time, the work adapts to a new context, taking on local collaborators and new meaning. “It depends on the size of the venue and the context—sometimes it functions more as a performance, sometimes as an installation,” Serapinas explained to Yatzer. “Each time, it involves a new local gym and art school. This can create unusual experiences, especially for professionals who are used to a particular type of gym equipment. I always want the actual gym trainers to hold their training sessions in my gym—so that the work is activated as much as possible.”

The installation's nautical setting is captured with a focus on movement. A white recreational boat carrying people speeds across the choppy water under an overcast sky. The foreground features a large, out-of-focus white classical bust of Michaelangelo’s David, its serene profile observing the fleeting, dynamic scene of contemporary leisure in the distance.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A symmetrical wide shot of the open-air gym on the barge deck. People perform bench presses using barbells weighted with classical plaster heads, seated on minimalist steel benches. The industrial gym setup creates a stark visual corridor, focusing on the activity while the vast, overcast seascape emphasizes the installation's remote, performative atmosphere.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A woman in a pink tank top uses a chest-press machine integrated with classical busts serving as resistance weights. The clean, sunlit lines of the metal structure contrast with the surrounding scattered busts on the weathered wooden deck. This image highlights the literal use of artistic ideals as tools for contemporary physical self-sculpting.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A striking close-up highlights the fusion of weight training and classical sculpture. A woman performs a pull-up, her focused form silhouetted against a large, bearded plaster bust fixed to the metal gym frame. This powerful visual metaphor addresses the enduring pursuit of the idealized human form across millennia, set against the horizon's soft light.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A high-angle shot captures a woman performing an exercise, her bright athletic wear contrasting with the white, aged plaster bust of a noticeably older figure secured to the equipment. The choice of an aged classical model, rather than an idealized youth, adds a layer of commentary on time, decay, and the relentless pursuit of physical form.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A woman is seated on a small stool, performing a rowing motion using plaster heads attached to intersecting metal bars. The composition emphasizes the direct engagement between the participant and the repurposed sculpture. The raw material palette of worn wood and matte white plaster is unified by the bright outdoor lighting, suggesting a fusion of studio and gym.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A striking profile of a plaster bust of Michaelangelo's David commands the foreground, mounted on a sleek metal post. The figure's stoic gaze seems to observe the blurred figure of a woman exercising in the middle ground, her contemporary energy contrasting with the unmoving perfection of the classical head. This spatial relationship defines the conceptual boundary of the art piece.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A focused image emphasizes the irony and tension between cultural epochs. A woman in a pink tank top exercises on a metallic machine, while a detailed plaster bust of a classical figure is fixed directly to the apparatus. The composition places ancient idealism and contemporary physical culture in immediate, kinetic proximity.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

An expansive view of Serapinas's installation, where raw, dark industrial metal frames form a rhythmic grid across the gallery space. The frames hold or suspend numerous white plaster casts, contrasting the antiquity of the busts with the modern, skeletal aesthetic of gym equipment. A blue track line on the floor grounds the piece in physical culture.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

At CAC Vilnius, that activation reached new heights. Curated by Neringa Bumblienė, the 1,000-square-metre installation featured a new suite of sculptural machines modelled after classical statuary and student works from Serapinas’ own past. “This exhibition gave me the opportunity to create a large platform where, for the first time, people could train and draw simultaneously,” Serapinas explained, referring to the easels interspersed among the machines. “I had never done that before.”

That duality, between art and exercise, runs through every aspect of Physical Culture. By juxtaposing the repetitive gestures of drawing from plaster casts with the equally repetitive mechanics of lifting weights, Serapinas reveals how both disciplines rely on discipline, repetition, and imitation utilised as tools for self-improvement. The comparison is as humorous as it is revealing: academic drawing and bodybuilding, after all, both measure progress through the training of muscle memory, whether of the hand or the body.

A dramatic close-up on Serapinas's sculptural pieces: a bearded classical bust sits on a slanted metal frame, while smaller heads are used as weights on a barbell. The rough, textural contrast between the white plaster and the dark steel is highlighted. A blue line on the floor and a striped bench evoke the gymnasium atmosphere within the gallery.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

A striking piece of functional sculpture stands centrally: a minimalist black steel chest press machine featuring a striped blue-and-white cushioned seat and backrest. Two plaster heads are mounted on the lateral moving arms, acting as the weights. The object is a concise visual metaphor for the exhibition's theme, directly fusing the rigor of exercise equipment with the reverence of classical art.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

The installation is presented as an architectural landscape, with a dense cluster of minimalist black steel frames occupying the center, circled by a blue running track. The structures support various objects—including classical busts and small textile pieces—suggesting a synthesis of art studio, weight room, and monument. The overall effect is an austere and thought-provoking study of cultural legacy and physical culture.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A woman with visible tattoos performs an overhead cable movement using a black steel frame as her apparatus, flanked by classical busts on pedestals. Her athletic pose and attire juxtapose the dynamism of the contemporary body with the static, idealized historical sculpture. The bright, clean gallery space focuses all attention on the dramatic interaction between the performer and the art object.

Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Tautvytas Stukas.

A man executes a deadlift, holding two large plaster heads of Greek gods or heroes in each hand, grounded against the stark white floor. The low angle accentuates the figure's muscular form and the burden of the classical ideal. The industrial black frames and open, brightly lit space create an austere atmosphere of physical and artistic challenge.

Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Tautvytas Stukas.

Framed by the vertical steel posts of a weight machine adorned with classical heads, a man in dark sunglasses holds the bar in a seated chest press position. His direct, unflinching gaze and cool, minimalist attire create a powerful portrait that merges gym culture with artistic tableau. The surrounding crowd is blurred, isolating the central figure in this meditation on self-fashioning and strength.

Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Tautvytas Stukas.

A close-up view focuses on a plaster bust in the likeness of Michaelangelo’s David mounted horizontally on a metal bar, acting as a weight plate. The smooth, pale texture of the sculpture contrasts with the slightly rusted metal bar. This piece of fragmented antiquity used as gym equipment is a striking commentary on how cultural ideals are physically weighted and measured in contemporary society.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

Yet beneath the wit lies a serious reflection on how Western ideals of beauty are formed and perpetuated. The installation’s plaster replicas of canonical sculptures—David, Apollo Belvedere, and other paragons of classical harmony—stand as both literal and symbolic weights. They remind us how deeply the Greco-Roman cult of the body still anchors modern notions of virility and desirability. “The work became less personal and more about Western society,” Serapinas notes. “Today, gyms serve as temples of the body, making physical training a cultural ritual.” This observation cuts to the heart of Physical Culture as the gym, like the museum, is a site of worship: both celebrating discipline, transformation, and idealised form. The difference of course lies in one venerating the image of the perfected body, while the other enshrines it in plaster, marble, or bronze.

A minimalist black steel bench with a blue-and-white striped top sits on the white gallery floor, near a curving blue track line. Attached to the bench's base are two white plaster fragments, repurposed as anchoring weights. This piece of sculptural furniture subtly merges the functional, gymnasium aesthetic with the unexpected absurdity of classical fragments.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A dramatic, near-abstract shot focuses on the back of a plaster bust framed by the severe black lines of a steel apparatus. The highly textured curls of the classical hair fill the frame, compressed between the industrial vertical bars. The composition isolates the sculpture, turning the revered object into a raw material constrained by the geometry of modern design.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A spare, minimalist composition features a simple steel chair with a blue-striped cushion. Two plaster heads, facing opposite directions, are mounted atop the chair's back posts, suggesting a silent, intellectual conversation or a confrontation. Set against the vast white background and clean lines of the blue track, the piece feels like a lonely, self-contained study of dialogue and physical ideal.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

This wide-angle view illustrates the extent of the installation, where modular black steel frames create a gym-like environement. The elements—broken plaster busts, minimalist easels, and benches—are deliberately scattered yet organized around the subtle blue track line. The austere white gallery setting and diffused light enforce a mood of unrelenting, purposeful examination of the human form.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A forest of easels and scaffolding by Augustas Serapinas creates a complex field of vision. The composition juxtaposes the raw wooden texture of the easels and bright white canvases with dark, industrial metal frames. A large plaster bust, cropped close, sits on a frame, blending the studio setting with the rigour of physical training.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

Two women in black perform back squats using a barbell weighted by Classical plaster busts, embodying the fusion of aesthetic idealism and physical labor. The blurred foreground figure emphasizes the raw motion of strength training, while the bright, minimalist gallery setting and stark black and white palette highlight the conceptual tension between art history and contemporary discipline.

Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Tautvytas Stukas.

  • An immersive perspective on Serapinas’s exhibition, highlighting a highly-detailed plaster bust of a bearded classical figure resting on a small, striped stool in the foreground. Surrounding it are repetitive easels and metal frames, evoking an art school studio recontextualised as a fitness space. The raw wood and white canvas textures lend an authentic, unpolished feel.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

  • A wide-angle view reveals the expansive, rhythmic arrangement of Augustas Serapinas's frames and plaster busts in the gallery. The repetition of dark, textural metal structures creates a grid-like tension against the floating white heads, suggesting a sculptural gymnasium or an anatomy study lab. Overheard diffused light emphasizes the installation’s precise spatial relationships.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

  • A dynamic composition featuring floating and grounded plaster busts among metal racks and wooden easels. The sculpture of a classical male head is affixed with a metal handle, ready to be lifted. The installation’s industrial materials and academic setting create an evocative dialogue between the physical labour of artistic creation and bodily cultivation.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

  • This evocative detail shot captures a weight bench assembled from industrial steel, with classical busts serving as weights and counterbalances. A small pile of brightly coloured fabric draped on a nearby rack introduces a pop of saturated colour against the dominant neutral palette, contrasting athletic utility with classical ideals.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

  • The exhibition floor is densely populated with Serapinas's sculptural gym equipment, viewed under a large, diffused translucent ceiling. The composition uses repetition and depth to create a labyrinthine space. Plaster heads and limbs are interspersed with easels and small, colourful pieces of draped fabric, lending a surreal, anthropological feel to the convergence of art and athleticism.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

A minimalist art installation by Augustas Serapinas, where plaster classical busts sit atop raw, industrial metal frames resembling gym equipment. The soft, neutral color palette of white walls and plaster contrasts with the rough, dark steel. A shallow depth of field emphasizes the weathered bust of a Greek goddess in the foreground, creating a surreal collision of antiquity and athleticism.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.

By turning the exhibition space into a gym, Serapinas also exposes how institutions shape behaviour through rules and rituals. Visitors at CAC could not simply use the equipment at will but had to undergo an introduction that provided basic guidance and instruction regarding the machines. The aim, as he explains, was to make it feel like going to a real gym, but in an art institution in order to blur the line between art and life.

That blurring has defined Serapinas’ wider practice, which often engages with social structures and local histories in ways that are both subtle and playful. From reconfiguring hidden spaces in public buildings to reconstructing vernacular architectures, his works probe systems, be they educational, institutional, or cultural, that shape how we inhabit space. Physical Culture is among his most distilled examples, folding together personal history, cultural critique, and collective experience into a single, participatory environment.

  • This image captures an intimate moment of exertion where a performer, framed by a black steel structure, executes a rowing-like motion. Classical plaster heads hang suspended as counterweights, juxtaposing the enduring idealized physique with the contemporary reality of the working body. The expansive white gallery and scattered geometric equipment create a clean, disciplined atmosphere.

    Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

  • A dynamic performance activates the gallery space, featuring performers exercising among minimalist black steel frames and scattered white plaster busts. The high-contrast composition uses the stark white floor and walls against the performers' dark attire, emphasizing the bodies in motion. A man performs a handstand on small striped stools, symbolizing the tension between classical form and physical discipline.

    Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovilė Markevičienė.

  • Two women in matching black activewear lean into a symmetrical push-up position, their bodies forming a powerful V-shape over a striped table-bench. The industrial aesthetic of the dark steel apparatus contrasts sharply with the vulnerability and strength of the human form. The composition highlights themes of physical rivalry and shared discipline within the minimalist exhibition architecture.

    Physical Culture, activated installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovilė Markevičienė.

A dynamic, wide-angle shot of a group engaging in synchronized calisthenics on the barge deck. Figures with arms raised in ecstatic motion are framed by an array of plaster heads and minimalist steel benches. The image powerfully depicts the active physical culture taking place amidst the static, revered forms of artistic history, under a dramatic, cloudy sky.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

Two women in athletic attire perform an elevated yoga pose on the weathered deck, their arms stretched toward the sky. A classical bust in the immediate foreground, intentionally out of focus, acts as a visual anchor. The image emphasizes the vertical tension and contemporary devotion to physical wellness, set against the enduring presence of artistic heritage.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A rugged, bearded plaster bust dominates the foreground, its downturned gaze adding a sense of solemnity. In the background, a woman performs pull-ups on the metal frame, her form elongated and blurred by the focus. This contrast between the static, heroic ancient form and the dynamic, fleeting modern effort perfectly encapsulates the installation's philosophy.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • close-up of two rugged plaster heads, their classical features weathered and lightly soiled, resting on the metallic exercise frames. The shallow depth of field blurs figures in modern sportswear behind them, powerfully merging the enduring, idealized form of antiquity with the contemporary pursuit of physical perfection.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A close-up of several plaster busts resting directly on the wooden deck, including a rare bust with multiple faces. Their static, serene form contrasts with the dynamic movement suggested by the running shoes and cropped legs of the figures in the background. The arrangement of the busts emphasizes the sculptural language inherent in the installation's design.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

  • A dramatic close-up frames a serene, curly-haired classical bust in the foreground, fixed to the industrial metal structure. In the background, a person performs an exercise, their focused action blurred by the shallow depth of field. The composition beautifully isolates the idealized marble texture against the raw steel and active human form, highlighting the installation's core tension.

    Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A low perspective captures several plaster busts scattered on the dark, weathered wooden deck. In the foreground, one head is pierced horizontally by a metal rod, rendering it a literal weight. The composition highlights the disassembly and re-purposing of idealized sculpture, creating a visual metaphor for the Physical Culture installation's theme of history as a functional tool.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A low-angle perspective captures a cluster of white plaster heads scattered on the wooden floor, some featuring metal mounting hardware. The focus on the foreground's fallen, fragmented sculptures draws the eye toward the intact, towering rows of exercise machines and busts in the distance, suggesting the fragility and enduring legacy of classical thought.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A woman performs a deadlift, her focused exertion evident against the bright sky, using a barbell weighted by two classical plaster heads. This image is a literal manifestation of the theme: the physical weight of history being lifted by the contemporary body. The wind-blown hair and stark light lend a dynamic, heroic quality to the everyday exercise.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), activated installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A striking panorama of Augustas Serapinas’ Physical Culture installation on the barge deck. Industrial metal frames stand as makeshift display cases for numerous white plaster busts, some draped with athletic gear. The urban backdrop across the water contrasts sharply with the wet, weathered wood and the solemn presence of the classical sculptures, suggesting a temporary, poetic sanctuary.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A sharp, detailed study of a plaster bust of a Michaelangelo’s David, fixed on a metal pedestal. The crisp white material contrasts with the slight dirt and rugged mounting, underscoring the installation's theme of re-contextualizing historical ideals within a rough, utilitarian environment. Direct sunlight emphasizes the clean sculptural lines.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

Two plaster heads, modified into unconventional kettlebells with silver metal handles, rest upon a narrow metal frame. The soft, late afternoon light illuminates their classical contours, setting them against the distant, blurred green shoreline. This image powerfully conveys the installation's repurposing of cultural relics as tools for modern physical training.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A broad, atmospheric view captures the installation's unique setting. A stark, dark industrial barge floats serenely on the shimmering water under an overcast sky. A mast bearing diverse, flapping flags suggests a temporary, sovereign space, emphasizing the isolation and performance of the art piece within the vast, minimalist seascape.

Physical Culture (Sports Barge), installation view, Nida, Lithuania, 2025. Photography by Danas Macijauskas.

A close-up reveals the distinctive material and conceptual contrasts defining the exhibition. Brightly lit white plaster casts of Classical busts are mounted on dark, utilitarian steel stands. The surrounding field of minimalist easels and hanging textiles suggests the intersection of the art studio and the training regimen, creating an atmosphere of archival discipline and aesthetic study.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

In many ways, the CAC version marks the project’s maturation from a mischievous student’s installation about art education into a profound meditation on the endless pursuit of perfection: almost like a mirror reflecting both aesthetic inheritances and our contemporary obsessions. As visitors left the Great Hall, their muscles perhaps a little sore, their minds a little sharper, they carried with them the paradox at the core of Serapinas’ work: that culture and exercise are not opposites but reflections of the same enduring desire to improve, to transcend, and to belong.

A steel gantry dominates the foreground, designed to resemble a weightlifting cable machine and draped with thin cables ending in small handles. It frames an array of other black steel apparatus, wooden easels, and disembodied plaster heads. The piece expertly captures the industrial aesthetic of the exhibition, highlighting the raw materials and the concept of the classical form being subjected to modern mechanical principles.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A central plaster bust of a bearded deity is dramatically framed within a tall, narrow black steel gantry, serving as a weightlifting cable machine simultaneously. The composition emphasizes the verticality of the structure, while scattered striped stools and smaller busts create a repeating motif of functional design and classical form. The scene feels both utilitarian and reverential.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

A sweeping overview of the installation emphasizes the vast, minimalist volume of the gallery, capped by the expansive, translucent ceiling grid. The complex arrangement of geometric black steel frames, easels, and plaster busts is contained within a large blue-lined oval track. This composition captures the industrial-meets-academy aesthetic, presenting the exhibition as a meticulous, deconstructed cultural training ground.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Jonas Balsevičius.

Two people sit casually amidst the industrial scaffolding and classical heads of Serapinas's exhibition. The scene captures a moment of intimate authenticity, contrasting the cold, geometric framework of dark metal with warm, human interaction. The white plaster busts and striped furniture add texture, blurring the lines between art object and functional design.

Physical Culture, installation view. Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) Vilnius, 2025. Photography by Dovaldė Butėnaitė.