Darius Gircys
dal 19/9/2007 al 26/10/2007
Segnalato da
19/9/2007
Darius Gircys
Giedre Bartelt Galerie, Berlin
Way out 21- out of 73. "It all started in a underground station in Berlin. I was staring up into the shaft of light that appeared to me in the form of a rectangle. At the end of the stairs there was an abstract, diffuse light." (D.Gircys)
Way out 21- out of 73
An acquaintance recently remarked upon the fact that I had not
maintained direct contact with my native country and its cultural scene
for ten years. Up to then I had never really felt as if I had
emigrated. It's certainly true that my lengthy trips across Europe
ended after I received a residence permit here in Berlin. However, I do
enjoy dreaming about the city of Vilnius, which I have left 1,000
kilometres to the east, as I stride through my studio in Wedding. Let
me put it another way. I believe that I have turned my home city into a
different, utopian city, perhaps into one that is more complete that
at least is what I keep telling myself or, at any rate, into a city
full of signs and polyvalent metaphors.
It all started in a underground station in Berlin. I was staring up
into the shaft of light that appeared to me in the form of a rectangle.
At the end of the stairs there was an abstract, diffuse light. I could
almost believe that the sun state was just 30 steps away. This moment
lasted for two seconds. One step on, I sensed that the sight of the
Berlin street would make my sun state shatter into pieces. After that
I started discovering and documenting my utopias next to the city's
underground exits.
In the enclosed courtyards series the light source is also very
important. If you are standing on ground level with five floors
towering up around you, then the light seems unattainable. You will
never escape from the ditch in which you have turned into an ant with
an eastern European accent. The only thing left to you is to pray to
this square illusion above your head. The distance from the bottom of
the courtyard up to the sky is exactly the distance to my homeland that
no longer exists.
In the early 1990s, my mentor Roman Opalka described what I was doing
in Salzburg at the time as an example of humanist geometry and
portrayed the emigration of an artist as an inexorable means of testing
one's artistic ego and the effectiveness of one's own artistic methods.
Opalka was passionately advancing towards his Polish infinity by
depicting bigger and bigger numbers in France. By contrast, I
consciously did not want to get any closer to the sources of the lights
that interested me or to the darkness. To create artistic utopias, you,
of course, need to maintain sizeable and safe distances. Possibly, it
is also important to stop at the right time rather than trying to
achieve a definite goal, so that the cherished illusion does not vanish.
Giedre Bartelt Galerie
Linienstrasse 161 - Berlin
Free admission