The exhibition ‘Just as It Appears’ by Domas Ignatavičius is opening on the 17th of January at 6 PM at Pamėnkalnio Gallery (1 Pamėnkalnio St., Vilnius).
“Things, mere things, perpetually pose a problem because of the specific unspecificity that ‘things’ denotes” (Bill Brown‘s Thing Theory).
Algimantas Kuras, Arvydas Šaltenis and Kostas Dereškevičius once introduced new motifs into Lithuanian painting – they painted industrial objects such as power inlets, port units, pipes or an electric stove. Vincentas Gečas, A. Šaltenis, K. Dereškevičius pointed to cars, public transport (A. Kuras also painted a bus) or their parts – driver’s cabins, doors, interior spaces. The relationship between technology and man, explored in their paintings, showed the process of modernisation, the increasing intrusion of machinery into people’s everyday life.
Domas Ignatavičius is an artist who creates conceptual glass objects, which he regularly presents at exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad, and in recent years he has also created a number of paintings. He paints a variety of household appliances – sometimes mechanical devices that were invented in the 20th century and testify to the era of modernisation, and sometimes contemporary electronic appliances or systems. However, the painter is not interested in the working principles of these mechanisms; he paints them as images of everyday life. These motifs can be found in the artist’s paintings, drawings and glass objects. Ignatavičius takes a close look at the often unnoticed participants in our lives, using different means to extract them from their surroundings and bring them back into our attention.
As the author states, “the objects-devices that shape our everyday life become invisible. Our choice is determined by their colour and function, and then they simply disappear, blending into our environment. The exhibition explores these objects through painting, disconnecting them from their environment. When drawing an everyday object, the general features of the object and the details conveying its functionality are usually depicted. The object, just as it appears, is the image of the object formed by our consciousness.“
Ignatavičius’ works bring to the forefront not only the tensions between man and machines, as explored by 20th-century philosophers, but also the current debates related to smart devices and artificial intelligence. The images presented here could be seen from the perspective of, say, Gilbert Simondon. This philosopher, in his book On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, published as early as 1958, presented a new version of the philosophy of technology in which he articulated the specifics of the situation of the technological civilisation of that time. One of his main theoretical concepts is the attempt to reconcile technology and culture. One could also look for speculative realism in Ignatavičius’ works, as an illustration of Graham Harman’s theories.
However, as we know, art is not an illustration of philosophy. Painting, this painting, has its own emotional charge, its own language, it creates its own reality, which is what we are proposing to experience in this exhibition.
Curator: Aistė Kisarauskaitė.
Organiser: Pamėnkalnio Gallery.
Sponsored by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
The exhibition is part of the programme of the 90th anniversary of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
The exhibition is included in the cultural route of the Vilnius City Su-menėk initiative: Pamėnkalnio Gallery will be accessible by a free Su-menėk bus on all February weekends. Gallery opening hours during Su-menėk: II-V 11:00-19:00, VI 11:00-18:00, VII 13:00-16:00.
