Night Watch, a solo show by Paulius Šliaupa, is a poetic wander between the real and computer-generated urban environments. Curated by Liv Vaisberg, the exhibition follows a peering gaze into the darkness, beyond the visible and the audible, into the hollowness it attracts. The exhibition title is eponymous to Rembrandt’s painting where the soft light envelops the beautified characters standing in the entrance to a dark corridor. Now what could a contemporary spectator imagine hiding in that darkened space? Perhaps growing up in front of a computer screen makes reality and interiors generated in one’s mind not so easy to discern. What would the artist’s Lithuanian cousin, a night guard, see wandering through the dim factory corridors? The artist recalls Jake in Stephen King’s series of books The Dark Tower: “Go then, there are other worlds than these.” What would one then feel when wandering in between worlds?
The exhibition is hosted in the Huidenclub. A former tannery then turned into a set design production company, it is attached to the monumental Diepeveen building known for its tower, only built for advertisement purposes. The new video presented is a collaboration between Paulius Šliaupa and Tessa Langeveld, with a soundscape made by Siebe Thijs. It oscillates between real and imagined resting spaces where shadows awaken. The damp spaces seem to be a timeless abandoned set for radiating lights, altogether springing the sensation that all might be coming to an end.
‘The Monk’, the other video presented in the show, poetically evokes mankind’s changing relationship with nature with the effects it has on people’s daily life and the feeling of loss and alienation it causes on a personal level. Alluding to Caspar David Friedrich’s “Monk by the Sea,” this work deals with sublime contemporary experiences. Aerial shots of frosted Lithuanian landscapes and cityscapes are accompanied by a male voice recounting his childhood winter experiences, in words and expressions that mimics the winter soundscape. From a secluded observation point that almost becomes a cell for the audience, the work echoes with the narrow tower springing out of the Diepeveen building.
The monochrome paintings are inspired by fragments taken from the two videos, reflecting the vast winter landscapes, human traces, and mementos of what once existed. The winter light does not recur or freeze but spreads through the unceasingly changing environment. Painting is like observing, it can also be a ritual of remembrance, imagination and an attempt to connect. In Paulius Šliaupa’s paintings, the ordinary details merge and fade away, leaving only a few unforgettable, infinitely recurring motifs, which remind us of the vast atmospheres they come from.
With:
Paulius Šliaupa (LT)
Curated by:
Liv Vaisberg
On view from 3 September until 13 November 2022.