GINTARAS DIDŽIAPETRIS

About

Maureen Paley is pleased to announce a solo project by Gintaras Didžiapetris. Recent video works will be combined and presented in a new configuration over both floors of the gallery. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in London and follows on from his 2014 Pavilion commission that was shown in Leeds, UK.

The primitive steam-engine as Newcomen conceived it, required the presence of a person exclusively employed to turn on and off the taps, either to let the steam into the cylinder or to throw the cold spray into it in order to condense the steam. It is said that a boy employed on this work, and very tired of having to do it, got the idea of tying the handles of the taps, with cords, to the beam of the engine. Then the machine opened and closed the taps itself; it worked all alone.

Now, if an observer had compared the structure of this second machine with that of the first without taking into account the boys left to watch over them, he would have found only a slight difference of complexity. That is, indeed, all we can perceive when we look only at the machines. But if we cast a glance at the two boys, we shall see that whilst one is wholly taken up by the watching, the other is free to go and play as he chooses, and that, from this point of view, the difference between the two machines is radical, the first holding the attention captive, the second setting it at liberty.

taken from Creative Evolution: An Alternate Explanation for Darwin's Mechanism of Evolution by Henri Bergson

Gintaras Didžiapetris was born in 1985 in Vilnius, Lithuania and studied at Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts 2004-2008. Recent solo exhibitions include Audi Fantasy, Pavilion commission, Leeds, UK, 2014; Color and Device, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania and Museo d ́Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genova, Italy, 2013; All the Things you are, Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria, 2010 and From Time to Time, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2007.

Recent group exhibitions include Port Authority, MARCO, Vigo, Spain, 2015; Tomorrow Night I Walked to a Black Dark Star, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2014; Underground, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia, oO, Lithuanian Pavillion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy, curated by Raimundas Malasauskas, 2013; On Horizons, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2012; ILLUMInations, 54th Venice Biennale, Italy, selected by Bice Curiger, 2011; Index Off, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2010; Paper Exhibition, Artists Space, New York, USA, 2009 and Radio Dinner, Resonance FM, London, UK, 2006.