Vadim Fishkin (b. 1965) lives and works in Ljubljana.
Lighthouse (1996/2011/2025)
Dark Times (2019–20)

For this year’s biennale, Vadim Fishkin’s Lighthouse (1996/2011/2025) transforms the tower into a living signal. Pulsing lights—linked in real time to the artist’s heartbeat, wherever he is—are transmitted via mobile technology. Having traveled to various contexts, the work now turns the site into a beacon, guiding visitors on their biennale journey.
Also on view is Dark Times (2019–20), presented inside the Archaeological Museum of Prizren. Time is one of the eternal questions to which Fishkin regularly returns in his art. Time, as a phenomenon, possesses the duality of being both physical and metaphysical—both an object of scientific study and a wholly ungraspable, uncontrollable force that shapes every aspect of our existence as finite beings. We view time as the most objective of norms and measure it with precision, yet our experience of it is constantly shaped by subjective impulses and moods: time feels short or long depending on the emotional state we are in.

Fishkin studied at the Moscow Institute of Architecture, from which he graduated in 1986. His work explores the relationships between science, personal experience, desire, and the imagination, between metaphysics and pragmatism, and between the artificial and the real. Fishkin’s main area of investigation is science and its study methods as he uses technological advances for essentially poetic purposes and many of his installations, sculptures, photographs, and drawings are informed by his distinctive sense of humor.

Recent solo exhibitions include:
Batteries not included, Loom Gallery, Milan, Italy (2023);
Dark Times, Božidar Jakac Art Museum, Kostanjevica na Krki, Slovenia (2023);
The Island of the Day Before, Franz Josefs Kai 3, Wien, Austria (2022);
Light Weight, DUM project space, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2022).

Recent group exhibitions include:
FROM DAWN TILL DUSK, The Shadow in Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2025);
Echo, NLB Contemporary Art Collection. Ljubljana, Slovenia (2025);
Tired Palm Trees, UGM museum, Maribor, Slovenia (2025);
Shared Horizons, 15th Bienal de la Habana, Cuba (2024).

Lighthouse (1996/2011/2025)
live transmission of a heartbeat, heartbeat receiver with the Bluetooth, live streaming via smartphone, computer, electronic relay, bulbs
special thank to: Miha Grcar (software)

Dark Times (2019–20)
wall clocks, paint, ticking