Dominykas Sidorovas | MORSE at Gallery "Akademija"

“MORSE” – the new exhibition of Dominykas Sidorovas – is a continuation of the artists’ earlier project: the exploration of the double perspective, which conjoins the poetics of everyday objects and the analysis of the creative process. Even though the main artistic medium of the artist is painting, here, just like in his previous exhibition “Firewall,” which raised the problem of the difference and the relation between ideas, seemingly pregnant with infinite potentialities, and their “realized” form, the focus is, once again, on his ink mural drawings. 

 

In the previous exhibition, the artist, by raising his mural drawings – understood as an initial recording of the conception or idea – to the fore, and superimposing his “realized” works on top of them, sought to record that which withdraws and is left invisible in the process of realization. “MORSE,” even though it remains within the field of the problem and employs the same means of expression, proposes a minimal yet crucial shift to this problematic. To put it simply: the difference between these exhibitions lies in their different approach to the question of difference itself. 

 

As it has been often noted by critics, the work of Dominykas Sidorovas questions the spontaneous metaphysical dualisms which continue to inform our experience and thinking. “Firewall” was no exception: it questioned the difference between potentiality and realization, which the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has identified as the “original sin” of western metaphysics. Since to realize is to exclude, the artist tried to show both “sides” simultaneously, to allow the excluded to appear. Despite the attempt to problematize the distinction, “Firewall” still emphasized the boundary, separating the two modalities. Moreover, the drawing, liberated from its status as a mere means towards the end of realization, could only take an independent shape in opposition to the realized work, as a leftover, a trace. But, to put it in somewhat Derridean terms, a trace always remains recalcitrant to any form in which something presents itself, and hence, it cannot be shaped, only traced. 

 

It is precisely the desire to give shape, a form, to what could only be traced that informs the new exhibition and pushes the artist forward. Now the drawing of the firewall is replaced by the ink mural drawing of the telegraph key – as the central organizing piece of the exhibition, a key, which, it could be said, unlocks the exhibition. But does it suggest that the artist seeks to close the distance that was still present in the shape of the firewall? Nothing could be more doubtful. The artist is neither interested in the message, nor in the medium, and neither does he seek to close the gap between two levels or cross the difference between two points that he had identified previously. Nothing is more foreign to his artistic practice than the contemporary imperatives of immediacy, the fantasy of instant communication without mediation. Indeed, if “MORSE” moves towards the dismantling of the firewall, it does not seek to ontologically flatten the world, of creating a new experience of oneness. The separation is being erased, but the gap persists: the difference between two levels, say, the here/now and what remains beyond, becomes the difference of one and the same surface from itself. 

 

The difference between an idea and its realization, which from a dualistic perspective is always insufficient and partial, is here reflected back into the idea itself.  Paradoxically, only a realization, a completion, a selection, which determines some aspects of the idea rather than others, opens the idea up for transformation by giving it a shape. Not a shape that fully coincides with the idea, but the shape which includes its difference from itself. In this sense, “MORSE” achieves what “Firewall” merely suggested: the mural drawing in ink gains its form, its independence – it can be exhibited, but not because it is realized on the other side of the process, but by including its difference from itself within its form, allowing its form to mediate itself, rather than be fixed in opposition to what is realized. Now the drawing is already its own other. Everything happens on the same surface without splitting into a duality. Indeed, it is no coincidence that it is no longer paintings that are superimposed on mural drawings, but other drawings. 

 

Here the artist locates the surplus of potentiality over realizations no longer in the beyond the wall that separates conception from the completed work, but in the very gap which keeps both the possible and the “realized” ideas open and reciprocally forming. By leaving behind the opposition between potentiality and the sphere of “realization,” “MORSE” invites us to consider actuality in its dynamic non-coincidence with itself.

 

Gallery "Akademija" presents Dominykas Sidorovas interdisciplinary exhibition "Morse". The exhibition contains themes of love, grief and devotion. The works reveal the author's unique look at objects that outline the trajectories of human existence. Artworks are made in different media, the main focus is on drawing. 

 

Dominykas Sidorovas (b. 1993) – lecturer at Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, artist, painter. In 2020 completed his master's studies at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Since 2016 Dominykas organizes personal exhibitions, actively participates in group shows in Lithuania and abroad.

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Sholto Dobie will perform at the opening at 19:00.

 

Sholto Dobie was born in Edinburgh and lives in Vilnius. He is an artist and organizer working with sound in it's broadest sense. He regularly performs in events, using loose structures, site specific methodologies and an array of sound sources including home-made organs and bagpipes. He is based in Vilnius where he co-organises the artist run space Studium P and curates a regular event and radio series for local and international experimental music called Progine. He has recorded and performed with artists and musicians including Rie Nakajima, Judith Hamann, Lia Mazzari, Shakeeb Abu Hamdan, Ahti & Ahti, Mo’ong Pribadi, Malvern Brume and Lucia Nimcova. He has released solo and collaborative music with labels such as Mappa, All Night Flight, Kashual Plastik, Infant Tree, Takuroku, Penultimate Press and Thanet Tape Centre. He has been artist in residence at Scottish Sculpture Workshop, QO2 Brussels, EMS Stockholm, CCA Glasgow and Syros Sound Paths.

 

Organizer: Gallery "Akademija"
Sponsors: The Lithuanian Council of Culture
Partner: Vilnius Graphic Art Center
Text author: Povilas Dumbliauskas