BLACK SILENT GRAPHICS
Vaidotas Janulis (Lithuania)
The exhibition’s graphic narrative stems from my work over the past five years. In essence, I invite the viewer on a journey across my ‘black collection’, and this odyssey unfolds in two distinctive yet, to my mind, deeply interconnected parts – the envelope assemblages followed by silkscreen compositions that address the viewer in the language of signs and objects.
An object can become a sign, referring to something beyond itself that we perceive as having a certain meaning and agree to consider a symbol. That symbolism may shift depending on the context.
Not every viewer will hear the rumble of a train speeding across the tracks in the “Red Refugee Keyboards”. Many will simply see a resting railway spike. Some might discern certain national archetypes in “Glaucoma”, reading into the layered stories of the signs. Others may see “Polygon Info Platform” as an aggressive cloud of black data, bound in threads of red. “Painful Information” may appear completely painless to some, although it casts a throbbing crimson shadow into the velvety darkness. Not every viewer will feel unsettled as their thoughts are drawn into the inky depths, led by the language of signs and symbols in “Flying in the Waves”. “Silent Archive” encodes the information within the envelope’s composition, observes the situation from afar and guards history’s secrets. The “Info Double” changes the name of the informant, and the comma goes missing in “The Lost Comma”. The “Double Information” triumphs, its goal achieved.
As the viewer navigates the exhibition, communication unfolds through the gaze. What do the gaze and the letter have in common? Both perform the same communicative function… But what if both glances and letters are hidden, sealed within envelopes? You close the envelope, then close your eyes; deep darkness prevails, yet the images remain. The black turns out to be coloured.
Vaidotas Janulis
The exhibition is on view at the Rothko Museum from 30 May to 17 August 2025.
Publicitāty image: Vaidotas Janulis. “Flying in the waves”. Silkscreen. 70 x 100 cm. 2020
