Exhibitions : Ash Buklys Didziapetris in'tVeld Laivys Nashashibi

10th to 16th of July 2010
Villa Reykjavik
Reykjavik, Iceland

I WANT TO SAY STRAIGHT AWAY THAT MY NAME IS ROBERT DUNCAN JUST IN CASE ANY OF YOU ENTERED THE WRONG HALL

Artists: Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris & Rosalind Nashashibi, Antanas Gerlikas, Nicolas Matranga, Elena Narbutaite, Snowden Snowden

Address:

Næsti Bar
Ingólfsstræti 1a
Reykjavik
Iceland

2010 06 05

Aaron Schuster and Nicolas Matranga present

STAND UP

Comedy like you've never seen it before.

At Moulin Rouge night club, Vilnius
One night only! Saturday, June 5 at 8pm
Free admission; exit 10litas

2010 03 27 - 2010 04 30

THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF (LEFTY LOOSEY, RIGHTY TIGHTY)

Artists: Mac Adams, Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Ryan Gander, Julius Koller, Juozas Laivys, Deimantas Narkevicius, Rosalind Nashashibi, Gintautas Trimakas

Opening: 27th March 2010 from 4 to 9 PM

GB Agency
20, rue Louise Weiss
Paris

The title of this exhibition is in fact a formula. The first part of it comes from an ancient tale about a boy who exploited words merely for pleasure. This boy was not really a liar, but he discovered to his own surprise that one can use words for their effects, without taking meaning into account. For a brief moment a world of possibilities opened up for him. The boy realized that one can at any moment link any two points in the universe at will and that all words and things are boiling in one huge kettle of time soup. Unfortunately, the wolf realized all this a bit earlier.
The second part of the title is a little mnemonic poem for English speaking kids to help them remember that you have to twist a screw to the left to loosen it and to the right to fasten it. It also teaches us that we sometimes understand things not because they mean much, but because they rhyme well or make funny noises.

Now the works in the exhibition can be grouped into several categories. First, works that do things without saying them. For instance, the black and hollow construction by Liudvikas Buklys is a purified object of design - a perfect and delirious figure of functionality as such. Hanging on the edge of this category we find an f-hole of a violin by Gintaras Didžiapetris which voices the whole in one single letter.
Then there are works that show how blind spots look like. Gintautas Trimakas sneaked into a gallery closed for repairs and took a couple of pictures which most likely document the shadow of an exhibition. Ryan Gander quickly understood that a shadow and an exhibition is the same thing in the end, and that the best way to hide a thing is to keep it where everyone expects it to be. Mac Adams framed the very form of mystery and gave us the answer before we even posed the question.
Other works in the exhibition deal with the puzzles of rhetoric. Deimantas Narkevicius enjoys music and dancing and shows us what happens when truth is told too well. In her films Rosalind Nashashibi constructs language as if from the other end - mute figures and shapes repeat until they start to make sense. In fact, this is what her characters do as well.
Lastly, there is a broken hammer by Juozas Laivys lost in the labyrinths of causality and a piece of transparency by Julius Koller. According to a Slovak dictum, if a boy drinks a glass of pure water, he will speak nothing but the truth. But what if the boy starts singing?

2010 01 30 - 2010 03 13

THE HAPPY INTERVAL

Croy Nielsen
Hedemann str. 14
D-10969
Berlin

Wed - Sat from 12 PM to 6:15 PM

Opening: 30 January 2010 - 6:15 PM

Artists:

Jesse Ash
Nina Beier
Liudvikas Buklys
Gintaras Didžiapetris
Aurelien Froment
Thomas Kratz
Benoît Maire
Rosalind Nashashibi
Snowden Snowden

One well known psychoanalyst once said: in order to make a book disappear you don't have to destroy it - simply take it out of its place in the library and insert it somewhere else, be it only several bookshelves away. Physically it will remain right at hand, but for anyone unaware of this, the potential sites and times of the books disappearance will be endless. Only a madman could start scanning the library book by book in order to find the missing oeuvre.
Yet there is another possibility, strangely corresponding to the one just mentioned: the possibility of accidentally finding a certain book which does not belong to the library. A book which coexists with the whole structure without in fact having a rightful place in it. How should one read such a book? How do you tell apart the necessary from the contingent or the text from the context in this instance? Do the underlined sentences form a secret message? Do these greasy fingerprints belong to the character who sneaked this mysterious book into the library? Maybe the whole narrative of the work was conceived only to distract the reader from something much more important? Are you in the book once you touch it?
In the case of the displaced book a subtle gap is demonstrated. This gap is between the real (in this case, the books) and the symbolical (the library). Once a book is erased from the symbolical order its reality is also destabilized. Yet how is it with the book which is in your hands but not in the register? There is no gap in this case - the book missing from the symbolical order still affects the latter. A tangible object intrudes into the sphere of ideas without itself becoming an idea. Apparently, the story begins in the middle as usual.

2010 01 21 - 2010 01 26

THE OBSTACLE IS TAUTOLOGY

studio D1 cité des arts montmartre
24 rue Norvins
75018 PARIS
Metro line 12: Lamarck-Caulaincourt
code: ask Benoît Maire by an SMS: 06 63 20 31 33

Opening: 21 January 2010 - 6 PM.

Exhibition is open everyday from 3 PM to 10 PM.

"the obstacle is tautology": this statement rests on a general proposition according to which conceptual art does not exist except when it is brought into being by repetition. This is a strong proposition. I claim that a being is an object belonging to the world and that it has no meaning when it is outside of "the stream of life", as Lawrence Weiner would say. A tautology, on the other hand, does not state anything apart of itself, its pure form, and destroys the Saussurian structure of a sign (signifier/signified) by not indicating anything outside of itself. In this sense, the traditional tautological conceptual art is not an object of the world - it can become one only when it is treated as a model and when its tautological functioning is taken as a reference. If we treat tautology as an obstacle we can use words in time and space to speak against it and produce echo.

It is not the aim of this exhibition to prove what I have insisted on above. I am only saying that "the obstacle is tautology" is the title of this exhibition. Within it one can see Philippe Fernandez' cinematographic adaptation of the myth of the Plato's cave, a portait of Jiri Kovanda remembering his first joy and sculpture of a flower without a why by Boris Achour, a mesmerizing sculpture by Alex Cecchetti, an electric lamp which casts light on its socket by Etienne Chambaud, a newspaper collage by Jesse Ash, an instruction for a collage made from motorbike magazine by Liam Gillick, several paintings of a new kind by Valentina Liernur, a photograph made by Bruno Serralongue one day after the event which motivated the decision to make the picture. In this exhibition there is also a sculpture open to transformation by Reto Pulfer and a plate by Gintaras Didžiapetris which changes when it is rotated. Finally, a site-specific painting by Amir Mogharabi. A speaking painting, perhaps.

I have a feeling that these works by themselves and within each of these artists corpus are questioning a certain outside. This outside is indicated by the fact that these works make a sidestep akin to the one requested by structural and non-hermeneutical analysis. This sidestep allows to move outside of the structure.

Benoît Maire

2009 10 29 - 2009 11 30

THE BURIED LEDE

A solo exhibition by Jesse Ash.

Opening: 29 October 2009 - 7 PM.

Jesse Ash: I have been reading a bit about the chess grand master Bobby Fischer, who only passed away recently. His story is fascinating. But I think his match against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik really interests me. The match was presented as a ‘cold war battle’ and so had deep political significance, yet all this hype and ‘meaning’, revolved around the game, with its own rules, formulas, patterns. I like the way this ‘meaning’ is represented, or signified through the formal elements of these wooden chess pieces, their individual moves, sequences, the checquered board and its territories.

David Lewis: The chess match as a (now traditional) metaphor for art?

JA: Not for art solely – there are a lot of things that collide here, some of which I don’t have specific answers for, but I think that’s why it interests me. There’s something about spheres of activity which mirror and reflect each other, where associations exist across and through small micro internal moments like the construction of a chess move in the mind of Bobby Fischer, to the board as a mirror of territorial occupation, to the macro global economic / military movements. But this is all played out through a very specific system confined to a table in a room in Reykjavik. The funny thing is that as I’m thinking about this, I can hear the British national anthem in my head … because while I was looking into this event in Iceland, I watched a documentary on the cod wars between British and Icelandic fishermen. There’s a scene where one of the British fishing boats plays the anthem through a tiny radio propped on the deck of his boat in the middle of North Sea. He stands there, in his boat facing Iceland. It’s a really humble action of defiance. The cod war was taking place at the same time as the chess match. I love the idea of this tiny, crackling sound in the middle of a vast expanse of water, playing simultaneously as Bobby Fischer moves a wooden piece which has potential significance to global politics. This was meant to lead to a work, but I haven’t made it yet. Maybe it’s better just like this, in words?

Fragment from an interview published in UOVO, issue/17, 2008, pp 128-145.

2009 09 10 - 2009 09 30

PARODOS

A solo show by Gintaras Didžiapetris.

2009 08 21 - 2009 08 28

A one week appearance of 2EASY FASHION at the gallery.

2009 08 06 - 2009 08 30

COLLAPSE, COLLIDE, COMBINE: AN EXHIBITION OF SMALL TRANSITIONS

Artists:
Jesse Ash, Michal Budny, Liudvikas Buklys, Martijn in't Veld, Juozas Laivys, Matthew Smith, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Curator: Daniella Saul

Jesse Ash
A Shared Blindness To A Matter Based on Chance (2009) is an octahedral object made from a photograph found by the artist. It is rolled each day by the curator. Each side corresponds to a different window in the gallery which in turn is altered, affecting the lighting conditions and visibility of the gallery space.
Review (2009) is the third version of an ongoing project where a critic is commissioned to review the exhibition before it has commenced.

Michal Budny
Mirror II (2008) is a small wood and ink piece resembling the lid of a small box propped upright. The piece was part of the previous exhibition at the gallery and was included into the current show by the decision of another artist, Liudvikas Buklys.

Liudvikas Buklys
Unpacked Painting (2009) will reveal itself only by request to the gallery staff.

Martijn in't Veld
The Space Is A Bookmark (2009) Henri Lefebvre’s book Rhythmanalysis will be read by the artist at home in Rotterdam with his own copy sent to him by the curator. The exhibition invitation-cum-bookmark will be inserted into another copy of the book in the gallery and will daily mark the artist’s progress in reading throughout the exhibition.

Juozas Laivys
Stormumriken 29 (2009) is a changing assembly of stills from a 1976 film Adventures of detective Kalle inside the gallery.
Stormumriken (2009) is a painted outline of a shadow on the façade of the gallery.

Matthew Smith
Untitled (2009) is a work composed of photographs and small wooden household objects whose installation is variable.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Mysterious Object At Noon (2000) will be screened in the gallery on the last weekend of the exhibition. “Mr. Weerasethakul's film is like a piece of chamber music slowly, deftly expanding into a full symphonic movement.” Elvis Mitchell (The New York Times, November 1, 2001).

Additional events and art works will be announced during the exhibition.

“Everywhere where there is an interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is a rhythm” (Lefebvre). Collapse, Collide, Combine: An Exhibition of Small Transitions starts and ends as an attempt to disturb rhythms. If the exhibition proclaims a disruption of rhythms, of small changes in time, the artwork may also allow itself a self-conscious movement between experimentation, research and potential completion within its own making. When the fixed is unfixed, implied and imposed by new actions of collision and combination, how can the artwork position itself as its witness?

2009 05 29 - 2009 06 30

THE OBSTACLE IS TAUTOLOGY

It is not the aim of this exhibition to prove what I have insisted on above. I am only saying that "the obstacle is tautology" is the title of this exhibition. Within it one can see Philippe Fernandez' cinematographic adaptation of the myth of the Plato's cave, a portait of Jiri Kovanda remembering his first joy by Boris Achour, constructions made by Michal Budny, a portrait of an ideal spectator by Alex Cechetti, an electric lamp which casts light on its socket by Etienne Chambaud, an instruction for a collage made from a motorbike magazine by Liam Gillick, a painting by Kazys Varnelis and a photograph made by Bruno Serralongue one day after the event which motivated the decision to make the picture. I have a feeling that these works by themselves and within each of these artists corpus are questioning a certain outside. This outside is indicated by the fact that these works make a sidestep akin to the one requested by structural and non-hermeneutical analysis. This sidestep allows to move outside of the structure.

Benoît Maire

2009 04 23 - 2009 05 23

THE HAPPY INTERVAL

Artists and projects:

Mariana Castillo Deball
Jason Dodge
FormContent
Ryan Gander
Mark Geffriaud
Laura Kaminskaite
Irene Kopelman
The Infinite Library

2009 01 15 - 2009 02 28

THE I AS AN O

Tulips & Roses is happy to present The I as an O - the first solo exhibition of Martijn in't Veld at the gallery.

The title of the exhibition can be read in several ways. 'I' is the first person singular pronoun, looks like a marker and sounds like an eye. The 'O' on the other hand looks like an eye, has the shape of a planet and sounds like perplexity. The exhibition itself is probably the space where all these meanings come together.

2008 11 21 - 2008 12 31

AND THEN CAME JOHNNY

Tulips & Roses is delighted to announce an exhibition by Liudvikas Buklys and Antanas Gerlikas.

Edgar Allan Poe opens his detective story Murders in the Rue Morgue with a theoretical question - what does it take to become a successful detective? This question could be paraphrased: is it de?nite that a good detective makes a good chess player? Is there a ?xed set of rules for a detective to base his career on? Or is it completely opposite and a great insight is neither a chess strategy nor a mathematical skill? According to Poe, the prevalent image of a detective as a master chess player is useless. What a chess player possesses is no more than a good memory - ability to apply a certain set of rules in order to foresee as many future moves as possible. Chess is actually a shallow game. The different value of each chess ?gure and the apparently in?nite number of game scenarios simply disguise the fact that all the possible combinations are con?ned within a basic set of rules and the ?xed ?eld of the chessboard.

As Poe puts it, chess could never be as sophisticated a game as checkers. Only the less observant could claim that a game of checkers ends when there are only a few pieces left on the board, when both parties can already anticipate the ?nal result. On the contrary, in this ?nal moment the game breaks out of all the set rules – the victory belongs to the one that knows his or her rival best. "Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identi?es himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation" - writes Poe. The movements, glances, and even the color of your opponent’s face tell so much more than the position of the pieces on the checkers board. At this point, it is not the rules that direct your moves – on the contrary, an unexpected move can create its own rule. In other words, playing with rules appears to be the main rule of the game.

As artists Liudvikas Buklys and Antanas Gerlikas share detective Dupin’s vision. Dupin himself is neither a completely rational person nor a prophet blessed with supernatural powers. His secret weapon is his ability to become somebody else, to inhabit the bodies of his rivals. "When I wish to ?nd out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to mach or correspond with the expression" - tells us Dupin. It is not one's intellectual capability that makes one a good detective, it is the ability to think according to the system that your opponent uses. It is not enough to see through a person – a true detective has to become a mirror for the eyes of his adversaries. This is precisely what Antanas and Liudvikas do. They always play according to the rules of the viewer. The latter is left to decide the order of words and things. However, suddenly one notices it changing – the letters are still there but I cannot read them. My re?ection in the mirror moves just before I decide to. I do not mean to say that Antanas and Liudvikas construct Trojan horses in the viewer's head or that they play with perception. It never happens that the 'content' of their work would appear to be different from the 'surface'. Everything is far more subtle. In his Islands of History, Marshall Sahlins describes Captain James Cook‘s ?rst visit to the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. Today it is even dif?cult to imagine the shift in perception that the Western Fleet brought to the natives the moment they appeared on the horizon. Native Hawaiians must have suddenly faced a completely different reality - a reality they had no means to deal with. Yet Sahlins gives us a completely different picture. When Cook made his ?rst step on the Hawaiian islands, he was already perceived as the Polynesian god Lono who returned to Hawaii to restore the fertility of the soil. Since then, Cook scrupulously carried out all the duties attributed to Lono by the local customs. There never was a moment of clash between the local and the Western cultures. Unintentionally, Captain Cook started acting as Lono, while Hawaiians immersed themselves into the commercial system of the West. The change of the world was supposed to appear as a miracle yet it merged perfectly with everyday life. Could this change also happen within the limits of an exhibition? It probably could.

2008 10 25

EXERCISES IN SEEING (LIVERPOOL)

Download the audioguide

A one night only exhibition with opening hours from dusk till dawn.

Artists: Jesse Ash, Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Rosie Farell, Benoit Maire, Darius Mikšys, Elena Narbutait?, Mandla Reuter.
Text for the audio guide by Aaron Schuster
Curators: Valentinas Klimašauskas, Jonas Žakaitis.
Venue: The Royal Standard, Liverpool.

We have not seen the EXERCISES IN SEEING exhibition, but we have heard about it from its numerous audio guides, whose authors did not see it either. Apparently, the exhibition escaped visual perception completely. It first took place this summer in Vilnius during the shortest night of the year, now it will have its second incarnation in Liverpool, at The Royal Standard.

To quote one of the audio guides from the first show, EXERCISES IN SEEING was a new statement in the old discussions on 'immateriality', 'visual dimension of cognition' and 'site-specificity'. According to another audio guide, “the show was aiming to inspire new ways of experiencing works of art instead of imposing definite canons of ‘seeing’, ‘understanding’ and ‘explaining’”. And yet another writer declared: “While visiting the show I remembered Sol Le Witt’s (I have not seen his works or read any books of him in my life) statement that ‘perceptual art depends on visual forms and conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye’ and suddenly I realized that EXERCISES IN SEEING blurred this statement based on strict oppositions”.

"There had to be 8 international artists and 9 pieces in the show, but I found 9 pieces and at least two exhibitions in this show”- someone said. “This is not a show, this is much scarier! At a certain point I felt like I was inside of the movie 'From Dusk Till Dawn' directed by one of those crazy 60s' conceptualists. The lights were switched off, but I have to say that I silently begged that nobody would switch them on. I preferred not to see what was happening around – I understood more than enough to leave the show in darkness” – confessed another visitor.

Yet this show is not about rumors and it is not conceivable through rumors. One source of inspiration for the exhibition was a movie titled ‘Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf’ where one can see how ordinary ways of ‘seeing art’ are physically altered. Michele (a nearly blind woman played by Juliette Binoche) is secretly taken to Louvre at night, as she cannot experience the works of art during the daytime because of all the tourists, security personnel, etc. Similarly, EIS attempts to give the viewer more privacy and more ways to interpret the art works than one could hope for in bright daylight.

Further information on the pieces in this show, was collected by listening to the artists and visitors. Darius Mikšys, who is showing (or hiding, to be more precise) an empty bottle of perfume, said that, "despite rumors that perfumes expire because of their unstable chemical composition, there is not too much room for chemical reactions in an empty bottle". Darius sold this everlasting source of fragrance on E-bay just before the show. 'Holes in Philosophy' by Benoît Maire literally gouges out holes in a dictionary of philosophical terms. When examining the dictionary you feel that these holes expand into the exhibition space and the book cannot be closed anymore. Jesse Ash hid an eye in his collage and made photos of other galleries at night, while Mandla Reuter uses sound to arouse certain anticipations and invites you to cross the fine border of the cinema screen. People have seen one part of Liudvikas Buklys piece traveling on a Lithuanian Railways train. However, the missing part of the piece will be shown to the visitors of the exhibition. Gintaras Didžiapetris will start a presentation, which will involve all the participants of the show. Elena Narbutait? will show a picture that casts a shadow upon itself, while the piece by Rosie Farell will cast a shadow upon everyone and everything.

2008 10 10 - 2008 10 30

JOHN MENICK

Tulips & Roses is glad to present an exhibition of John Menick's films.

Questions for John Menick

It seems difficult to categorize your work. You make films which in one way or another use other films (or cinematography itself) as material. You seem to be an observer who turns into an intruder - someone who lives simultaneously on both sides of the screen. Or maybe you are a missing detective? Have you read J. L. Borges' Death and the Compass?

I’ll probably have a lot of trouble answering the Borges thing because I haven’t read his work in years. I don’t consider him to be much of an influence. (I like his work a lot, but there’s a difference between admiration and influence.) Then again, I feel he’s unavoidable for most artists and writers, and probably influenced everyone in a way, even soap opera writers and library designers. What’s said about him is true enough: he somehow prefigured our own condition. And he did it despite being someone who definitely did not hang on a cultural cutting edge. He was a lonely librarian in Buenos Aires and he seemed better at predicting cultural paradoxes than sci-fi writers with resumes from NASA. I’m not sure how he did that. I guess it shows that lots of reading can make up for a lack of experience. That probably sounds Borgesian too.
One thing that always struck me about Borges’ stories is how he was able to write stories as a reader. He’s the reader’s reader. He’s also strongest when writing in paraliterary forms, like essays or fake reviews or historical fragments. The videos I make aren’t about books per se, but films, cinephilia. My work, at least the videos, often begins from the standpoint of a certain kind of cinephilia. It’s film criticism by other means. That’s probably what you mean by an “observer that turns into an intruder.” Viewers, for me, aren’t passive receivers of information. They’re constantly transforming what they see into their own material. Even if we agree on that, the viewer-author relation is not easy to define. If it were, I would probably be doing something else.

(By the way, Borges was also a film reviewer for a while. He wrote a hilarious review of King Kong. He hated it. Find it if you can. He’s probably the only person I know of who hated King Kong.)

What is a McGuffin?

Here’s the literal and pedantic answer: the McGuffin is the object in the film everyone talks about and desires, but only really exists to get the action moving. “Secret documents” is a classic example from spy films. Hitchcock coined the term.
I think you’re asking about it because the missing man in The Disappearance is sort of a McGuffin, but I’m employing it to other ends in the video. Unlike a traditional narrative scriptwriter, I don’t have any need to move a plot forward. For me, the McGuffin is a productive distraction. I’m really good at distracting myself - I should be working on project A, but I end up doing project B as a way of avoiding project A. This seems to be a similar operation. Making meaning becomes a massive detour. I need that journey for whatever obscure reason.

Have you noticed the man who followed you the whole day a few days ago?

I wonder how surprised any of us would be to find out we’re being followed. Most of our online transactions are archived and data mined. Our credit histories, at least in the US, define us. Most major cities are blanketed with public and private security cameras. (Insert favorite near-totalitarian surveillance example here.) What’s interesting is that we feel fairly comfortable being watched. We’re willing to fork over a certain part of our lives for a certain amount of something, whether it’s security or free shipping. I don’t think that many people avoid using Google because Google tracks our searches. Credit cards aren’t going away either. So why not be followed for a whole day? It’s a lot more personal than data mining. It’s almost flattering.

Do you have to break a watch to experience time?

I stopped wearing a watch about ten years ago. I forgot when it was exactly, but I remember why: I found I was looking at my watch on the subway and worrying about when I was going to get to my destination. It was absurd. I couldn’t move any faster than the train, and if I’m late, I’m late. So what do I need the watch for? It’s just a terrible anxiety machine. So I threw it out. I worked in an office then so I sat in front of at least two or three clocks. At home I had several clocks too. You can’t get away from them. Why strap one to your arm?
The funny part is I’m incredibly punctual – even without a watch. I don’t think watches and clocks have anything to do with an experience of time. They’re training devices. Wear one long enough and it still makes itself known. I’m afraid it takes a lot more than breaking one to kill the terrible master.

I was trying to do some research about the supposed fact that Nietzsche was using a typewriter for his last writings. Apparently, his sister bought him a Malling-Hansen Writing ball typewriter in 1882. He used this peculiar machine (which resembles human brain to me) with his eyes shut, because of his near blindness. He was never completely satisfied with it though - nobody knows why. Maybe it was the fact that this machine could only type in uppercase, maybe it was the uncomfortable architecture of it. Supposedly there is also a letter in which Nietzsche wrote to a friend: "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts". I wonder if he wrote this by hand. The downside of all of this is that I am not sure now what my question for you is...

I like the Nietzsche factoid in “Hearsay” because some writers seem like longhand writers (Dickens, Proust), and others seem solid keyboard writers (Burroughs, Gaddis). It’s an idiotic game because it’s nearly impossible to divide up writers this way, but I don’t think anyone would think of Nietzsche as pounding out pages on a typewriter.
Like just about all of us, I write on a computer. I rarely write longhand. My handwriting is horrible. Every so often I think about working on my handwriting – sort of like going back to grade school. I’ve heard about people that willfully change their handwriting. They just decide one day to change they way they write. Or maybe they switch hands: go from being a lefty to a righty. People like that fascinate me. I wish I could do it. I think these people who change their handwriting believe it will change their thinking and therefore it will change them on a deeper level. Kind of like the belief that smiling will make you happy or those criminologists who thought they could identify a person through their handwriting. Handwriting seems to be a dying form of technology, actually. It doesn’t seem that useful anymore except for making lists and writing checks.

2008 10 04

2008 10 04: DEIMANTAS NARKEVI?IUS' FILMS AT TULIPS & ROSES

Tulips & Roses is glad to present a retrospective of Deimantas Narkevi?ius films. Artist's films will be shown at the gallery from noon until midnight. At 6 PM there will be an open meeting with Deimantas where he will talk about his works and answer questions from the audience.

The following films will be shown:

Europe 54° 54’ – 25° 19’
Energy Lithuania
Scena
Disappearance of a Tribe
Once in the XX Century
Revisiting Solaris

2008 09 03 - 2008 09 30

JUOZAS LAIVYS

Tulips & Roses is glad to present an exhibition by Juozas Laivys.

One can see a lot of photographs in the exhibition space. What is special about them? Immediately you notice that the shots were taken some time ago - thirty, maybe even forty years ago. The photographs are black and white, they have some scratches and dust on the surface. The images themselves are hard to decipher. Most of them are portraits: in one picture a smiling girl with a turban is sitting in a bus, looking at the camera with glittering eyes. Was she on a trip together with the photographer, or did they meet briefly somewhere and never saw each other afterwards? A man in a black coat is balancing on a frail wooden bridge above a river, looking at his reflection in the water. This just might have been his last picture. Then there are photographs of empty furniture from an exhibition which apparently took place many years ago, a street parade going backwards and an airplane rising inside a picture. There seems to be some kind of a plot unfolding in these images - or is it just in the head of the spectator?

Juozas Laivys admits that he never took these photographs. He was the one who saved them from demolition and selected for this show. His father, also Juozas Laivys, was the one who made all these pictures but also the one who had no interest in them and wanted to destroy them. Probably now both of them have to be considered authors sharing the same name and the same exhibition. But what about the viewer? The viewer is strangely entangled in different time zones, trying to figure out where does a photograph "happen" - is it in the past or the present? It starts to get difficult to stand back and really see what these images show. Yet there is nothing hidden. All of the images here reveal you the true past, but each time slightly differently - depending on where and when you are present.

This is confirmed by Juozas' verse:

The image does not tell a lot
It is a shape within another shape
That makes your time an even spot
In order to revive and then relive it

However, in order to understand anything at all one will probably have to see the exhibition.

2008 07 15 - 2008 08 30

CARMINE

Artists: Adomas Danusevi?ius and Alina Melnikova
Curator: Milda Žvirblyt?

Jonas Žakaitis: It’s always difficult to start, so let’s begin with what we’re doing at the moment – creating a text on you (Alina and Adomas) and your works. Thus, my first question would be: define the relationship between your art works and language, how do your paintings deal with and respond to words?

Alina Melnikova: I try not to overemphasize the significance of words. I avoid describing my own works since this makes everything seem artificial. Of course, give titles to my pieces, which demonstrates the necessity of language – titles help me to direct a viewer.

Adomas Danusevi?ius: Everything that I do, I "do" visually – probably even more often than Alina…

Milda Žvirblyt?: It seems that language is very significant as a means of "control" that sets the boundaries for interpretation. Thus, I always focus on what the artists have to say about their works. This prevents from misapprehension and false interpretations.

A. M. Yes, I also enjoy reading on what the artists want to say, especially on what they say informally, during the interviews.

J. Ž. Let me ask you another question – Alina and Adomas, what could you say about each other’s works? This question creates the opportunity for you to "exchange" texts.

A. M. I think that Adomas’s paintings are really successful visually. I believe that I’m capable of "reading" those visual codes and I feel that I can relate to the things he wants to say. I like the way Adomas expresses his ideas on canvas; his works are really impressive.

A. D. I feel Alina identifying with her works and I like it. Everything that she does is very personal.

J. Ž. Could you name some artists that influenced your work? I know Adomas looks to the pieces of Luc Tuymans for inspiration…

A. M. I refuse all the influences. Of course, I know the way art developed and I appreciate the former achievements, but I do not feel any direct influences.

J. Ž. What was the reason you chose painting as a medium? Does painting have any particular qualities that attract you?

A. M. Personally, I can relate to painting rather closely. Painting lets me to express what I want to say – even when I work with performance. However, I have to admit that performance changed the way I paint – now the focus is the process of painting rather than the end product.

A. D. I’m actually surprised there are very few artists that still work with painting. This makes it even more interesting to paint, though, even if I used to think that finally I’ll end up working with all the different media. Photography and cinema are also important to me since they offer greater visual opportunities.

A. M. In my opinion, simplicity of painting is what attracts contemporary artists – on the one hand, this medium is constantly affected by new visual technologies; on the other hand, painting is so much more effective in terms of personal and artistic touch.

M. Ž. I would like to ask you another question: do you set the limits of privacy? How openly can you expose yourself to the public and when do you finally say "stop"?

A. M. I still did not confront with those limits. It’s difficult to believe they really exist. Limits are set by the society and institutions (there were cases my works were censored), not by me.

A. D. I also don’t feel restricted by any limits.

M. Ž. This leads to one more question on painting: how important is the process of painting? Is it significant in your case?

A. M. In my opinion, the process is an important part of painting since there are less obvious things that one wants to know as, for instance, the tools artists used for painting.

M. Ž. So what are the tools that you use?

A. M. I use all of them – brushes, pieces of cloth, and even my own fingers.

A. D. I’m not certain if the painting process is so significant. For me, observation is far more important; I explore and observe till the moment I am able to transform the view into a painting. In my works, the tools I paint with and the general technique are of no importance.

M. Ž. You spend just a few hours on one painting which is also the distinctive feature of Luc Tuymans who reached the stage only after experimenting for years…

A. D. Yes, my works come to life in brief but intense intervals – I stop when I see that the work is done, that there is nothing more to add.

J. Ž. I would like to direct this conversation another way. It is common that the viewers attending an exhibition not only expect but also require labels and explanations presented along the works of art. They want to know what artists want to say and what a particular piece represents. This interview could be an opportunity for you to talk to an observer and express your ideas in text.

A. M. It seems to me that sometimes the fact that the work is explained is more important that the explanation itself. People just need any kind of explanation; nowadays everyone counts on text too much.

J. Ž. Probably, but now I offer you an opportunity to say something to your audience.

A. M. In this case, I will repeat what I always say: my works deal with the shifting boundaries of identity and pleasure of viewing.

A. D. I have a strong position against explaining my own works. I allow all the kinds of interpretation. I could only leave an open question: what do you think?

J. Ž. But is it really possible to expect audience being so competent, having such a great fantasy?

A. M. Probably not, but there are many other ways to direct a viewer. While choosing the spaces to exhibit my works, I consider one’s physical relationship to the space; I try to make an observer move the way I already intended for him or her. Viewer is subconsciously led from one work to another, as well as, from one idea to the other.

J. Ž. Do you aim to create something new?

A. D. This is not my intention.

A. M. I also don’t think about it as of my major aim; however, I try to respond to the contemporary social context and criticize it. My paintings are intended to challenge viewer’s preconceptions.

2008 06 21

EXERCISES IN SEEING

Download the audioguides: English, Lithuanian

Artists: Jesse Ash, Liudvikas Buklys, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Rosie Farell, Benoit Maire, Elena Narbutait?, Mandla Reuter.
Texts for the audio guide written by: Catherine Hemelryk, Nerijus Milerius.
Curators: Valentinas Klimašauskas, Jonas Žakaitis.

As the name of the show indicates, Exercises in Seeing will aim to inspire new ways of experiencing works of art instead of imposing definite canons of ‘seeing’, ‘understanding’ and ‘explaining’.

For all of the artists participating in this one-night show a single constraint was introduced: all of their works are to be exhibited without any lighting in the gallery turned on. Yet in this case the absence of light and the change in the normal working hours of the gallery acted as a stimulant for the artists instead of restraining them. In a short while this group of young artists came up with ideas for their contributions – pieces that not only transform the way one can experience the space of a gallery, but which also give rise to unexpected changes in seeing and relating to the works of
art.

One of the sources of inspiration for the show was a movie titled Les Amants du Pont-Neuf in which one can see how ordinary ways of ‘seeing art’ are reconsidered. Michele (a nearly blind woman played by Juliette Binoche) is secretly taken to Louvre at night, as she cannot experience the works of art during the daytime because of all the tourists, security personnel, etc. Similarly, Exercises in Seeing will attempt to give the viewer more privacy and more ways to interpret the art works than one could hope for in bright daylight.

2008 05 23 - 2008 06 21

THE STORE

Curator: Adam Carr

With works by: Saâdane Afif, Oliver Babin, Stella Capes, Tomas Chaffe, Jason Dodge, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Claire Fontaine, Liam Gillick, Loris Gréaud, Ar?nas Gudaitis, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Gabriel Kuri, Matthieu Laurette, Juozas Laivys, Flávia Müller Medeiros, Darius Mikšys, Jonathan Monk, Paola Pivi, Dan Rees, Hannah Rickards, Yann Sérandour, Dexter Sinister, Andreas Slominski, Superflex, Ron Terada, Mungo Thomson, Mario Garcia Torres, Tris Vonna-Michell.

And other people's projects: ‘Top 100’ by Davide Bertocchi; 'Dot Dot Dot' by Dexter Sinister; 'Lester & Malašauskas' by Raimundas Malašauskas & Gabriel Lester; 'Old News' by Jacob Fabricius; 'Pin-Up Badges' by Pierre Beloüin & Nicolas Simonin.

Tulips & Roses, Vilnius is extremely delighted to announce its inaugural exhibition, THE STORE, curated by Adam Carr.

THE STORE takes as its starting point the location of the gallery – Vilnius, a place in which the art market has just begun – and its occasion –the galleries inaugural exhibition – to form a celebration of the art object while aspiring to provide critical reflection on the manner by which it operates in the eyes of the art market.

All of the artists included in THE STORE have been invited to participate with works that will available to the general public. The result is an inventory comprising artwork by over 25 international artists, as well as projects curated by other people, all of which can be purchased at relatively small prices or be taken away for free. THE STORE therefore offers artworks to a mass audience usually conserved in a private gallery context for a selective few, and in doing so aims to offer a new experience not only within private commercial galleries but for exhibition going entirely. Interestingly, by making purchases from the goods on offer – selecting a pair of keys, a poster and not say a slice of a cake and/or a napkin, for example – viewers will in effect be curating their own shows for which can be taken away with them. This shifts the role of the spectator into consumer and active participant, and in response to their activity, the exhibition will be subjected to perpetual change, order and reorder – altering both its form and meaning.