optical events
gintaras didžiapetris
On the occasion of the first solo exhibition in Italy by young Lithuanian artist Gintaras Didžiapetris (b. 1985, Vilnius), unosolo, the project room of 1/9unosunove turns into a projection room to present the première of the 16 mm film Optical Events.
“Beware of anonymous letters—you may have written them, in a wordless implosion of sleep”
John Ashbery
“Think of this show as a diary that was written to be found by a stranger. Without particular order of appearance – scenes in it are arranged as objects in a room, although it is more obvious that it is the time that we are seeing standing in a body of a gentlewoman who is due to change into a sign or an idea of a snake. She shapeshifts to become an introduction, but this very act is slow and similitude of many other thoughts become part of the same room.” – he wrote about the film he hasn’t seen yet.
“Like the taches of colour are applied side by side – different impressions appear to be part of the same reality. Film is impressionistic medium. The ways in which color pigments come together to complete mixing only in the viewer’s eyes are produced by mixing complementary colors straight on canvas in XIXth century Europe. Mechanical reproduction goes hand in hand with the painterly photographic” the text continues.
“I think of T.J. Clark’s text on Camille Pissarro We Field-Women. The expression optical events, describing Pissarro’s canvas surface, seemed to encapsulate a very condensed version of conflicts throughout history of Modern Art. This sole combination of words has become a kind of looking glass through which I fell into a vast indexical scope. As one never starts a text from scratch. This one, for example, was probably first to begin in the pages of a Victorian novel just to be torn for a cubist collage as a missing piece or a piece of cloth. What if it is a definition or description one should never trust? Think of guessing and not being right for a moment, as this show will always be a lie. Something much greater – a promise, rests behind the screen. When the film is a show – there is no screen. The promise, then, is behind visibility. Or the film as a relic that is thinking, even when the viewer is asleep.”
For any further information please contact:
gallery@unosunove.com