Augustas Serapinas’s new show at Nottingham Contemporary gives flabby ideas of perfection a proper workout
In today’s sweat-soaked world of run clubs and looksmaxxing, gym girlies and class passes, artists traverse a visual lavafield where Harry Styles’ marathon running, GLP-1 arms discourse, protein macro tiktoks and electrolyte grifts capture at least as much of their attention as formal considerations of aesthetics. Is it any wonder then, that when a young man’s thoughts turn to a structural critique of perfection, they turn to the gym?
Augustas Serapinas’ work “Physical Culture”, on show at Nottingham Contemporary until 6th September, is a layered exploration of the impact that classical representations of ‘perfect’ manliness have on visual culture, and his own experience of a profoundly competitive arts training in his native Lithuania focused on achieving that perfection.
Speaking at the opening of the show, Serapinas said of the effect of his training, “Classical figures are held up as the best examples of Western art, and we learn to reproduce that form, and see the bodies in classical art as ‘perfect’ examples. But competitive training …where you are scored like a sports competition for your work (in reproducing classical beauty ideas) against your classmates…gives you a false sense of accomplishment and that sense of competition informs everything, from how you get jobs to how you make work”.
The context of the perfect form maps easily onto the idea of the gym, and the stage is set with spaces filled with pumping workout music and gym equipment appended with classical statuary. But where Serapinas pushes the idea in a more interesting direction is in the staging of the show as an ongoing series of activations where bodies of all shapes and sizes are invited to use the gym equipment whilst art students draw from them on the easels that are scattered between the machines. Working with local trauma-informed trainers, sports clubs and arts schools, and inviting the public to book their own training sessions, the activations that form the show schedule lift the work from a simple analogy towards something more radical, an intervention in the formation of the visual language of today’s dominant culture and with it, a humour-infused reordering of notions of embodied capital.
Serapinas himself is a joyful structural thinker, seemingly at home with the chance elements brought about by collaboration. Whilst happy to admit to exercising at home, he does not work out at a gym…
Augustas Serapinas Physical culture, 6th Jun 2026 – 6th Sep 2026, Nottingham Contemporary
About the artist
Augustas Serapinas creates installations and sculptural projects that emerge from close collaboration with communities, local histories and existing architectural structures. Often working with found buildings, vernacular construction techniques and everyday materials, Serapinas transforms familiar environments into artworks that explore labour, ownership, memory and social exchange. His practice frequently blurs the distinction between artwork and architecture, creating projects that are as much about process and participation as they are about physical form.
Drawing on both personal encounters and broader cultural narratives, Serapinas reimagines overlooked spaces and structures, revealing the social relationships embedded within them. Barns, houses, sheds and other utilitarian buildings are often dismantled, relocated or reconstructed, taking on new meanings while retaining traces of their previous lives. Balancing humour, ingenuity and careful observation, his work examines how architecture can carry stories, identities and collective histories across time.
Through site-responsive installations and collaborative methods, Serapinas invites viewers to reconsider the value of ordinary places and the communities that shape them, transforming everyday structures into powerful reflections on belonging, exchange and cultural memory. @augustasserapinas
