Photographs are traditionally looked at as if they are transparent. The idea is that one usually doesn’t look at the photographic surface, but rather through it to contemplate the scene an image presents in all its detail. This transparency of the medium serves many purposes, specifically, it enables the photographic image to function as the universal communicative language it is today.
Yet, a photograph cannot exist without a physical carrier. In „Surfaces” (2021-ongoing), Lithuanian artist-researcher Paulius Petraitis focuses on and examines the exterior side of photographs. Emphasising the materiality of the screen and print, images are here doubly distorted. Taking isolated moments and scenes from films as his source material, Petraitis re-photographs them adding multiple layers of analogue and digital intervention. Something – a hand gesture, a car’s headlights, rubber boots – gets cut out from its habitat of temporal continuity and is frozen into an image that is given new possibilities of meaning. Despite visible distortions, taken all together the images weave an imaginary narrative, one that is suggestive of a cosmic story.
„Surfaces” is Petraitis’ first solo exhibition in Latvia and is produced in collaboration with Sam Margevicius (US) and Gailė Griciūtė (LT).
Paulius Petraitis (1985) is an artist, theorist, and independent curator based in Vilnius. His practice orbits around image-making in broader social and cultural contexts. Much of his work explores the role of technology in meaning-making and examines ways photographic images function in online and offline environments. Petraitis’ recent project „A man with dark hair and a sunset in the background” explores visual recognition through a dialogue-based approach with an image interpretation software. It was presented in a solo exhibition at „Lokomotif” and published in 2020. Petraitis’ art books are held in numerous institutional collections, including libraries at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MACBA, as well as the Clark Art Institute and Yale University.
Riga Photography Biennial (RPB) is an international contemporary art event in Latvia, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation. RPB covers issues ranging from cultural theory to current socio-political processes in the Baltics and the wider European region.
More about the RPB 2022 programme (22nd April – 10th July) www.rpbiennial.com
Partners and supporters of the exhibition: State Cultural Capital Foundation, gallery PHotoESPAÑA, “Poligrāfijas Apgāds”, Printing house “Adverts”, “Rixwell Hotels”, Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, Punctum, BLOK
Artist: Paulius Petraitis
Exhibition title: „Surfaces”
Venue: ISSP Gallery, Riga
Date: May 20 – July 3, 2022
Photos: Riga Photography Biennial 2022. Photos by: Madara Gritāne
