FLOWING BODIES
Underground water reservoir, Aukštaitijos Vandenys, Panevėžys, LithuaniaCurated by (AV17) Gallery
2025
Janus developed the liquid recipes in collaboration with wild local yeasts, bacteria ans nearby plants. Variations in clay porosity cause the vessels to “sweat” and “cry,” reflecting Janus’s interest in systems that are never closed but open and permeable, through which water carries nutrients, minerals, metals, pollutants, and toxins. By working with traditional vessel shapes in repetitive arrangements, the installation evokes bellies or organ systems: both containers and bodies that hold, yet never fully contain, always seeping, sweating, and dripping.
The exhibition is part of the (AV17) Gallery project, which aims to present young Lithuanian interdisciplinary female artists and their works in non-traditional spaces.
Text by (AV17) Gallery
Urte Janus' sculptures, displayed on shelves resembling meat curing cabinets, are crystallised under thick layers of salt. What do we choose to bury and what do we choose to preserve? Food, bodies, poisons, memories, secrets, treasures, hopes – what is worth freezing in salt molecules, whose history of extraction and dispersal has catalysed wars, revolutions, and technological progress? Through compositions of found objects – tools, toxic waste, debris – Janus creates a microrepository, a small model of that immeasurable layer of salt in the earth, beneath which lie the most toxic traces of humanity’s activities, destined to outlive us.
In Paweł Olszewski’s canvases, time and space multiply around everyday objects. Painted specifically for this exhibition, his works feature a muted color palette and futuristic geometry that divides the canvas surfaces into thin layers, shimmering like digital screens in the dark. Or is it the screens that are observing us and the objects around them, rather than the other way around? Olszewski flips the usual perspective, turning familiar surroundings into still lifes lost in time, like binary oppositions seen through a technological lens.
Text by Editorial Projects
The film was created for the Journal of Art and Ecology and can be viewed here.
IN EXCHANGE TO AGES
National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, LithuaniaCurated by Kotryna Markevičiūtė and Ona Juciūtė
Exhibition Architecture by Povilas Marozas
Organised by Contemporary Art Centre, JCDecaux Lietuva
2023
Artist Urtė Janus, who currently resides and creates in London, presents the sculptural installation All the Seas Long Gone. With this piece, Janus offers us a glimpse of our planet’s history, spanning beyond the limits of human time and existence, leading us to the present day. Janus’ sculpture is created using natural materials formed over different periods – salt, limestone, and human-made aluminium. When aluminium is exposed to salt, natural chemical reactions occur, leading to slow, irreversible changes in texture and colour. By encoding the natural evolution of materials in her artwork, the artist reflects on deep time, human existence in a wider cosmic context, and the invisible processes constantly unfolding around us.
The JCDecaux Award is an annual cycle of exhibitions, initiated in 2016 by the Contemporary Art Centre and JCDecaux, aimed at promoting the work of emerging Lithuanian artists, raising their profile both in Lithuania and abroad. In Exchange to Ages was organised by the Contemporary Art Centre and presented in the National Gallery, Lithuania. The exhibition interwove folklore, gossip, electricity, weather forecasting, coding, and the ratio of metal to soluble minerals, with artistic expression ranging from sculpture to performance.
Text by Kotryna Markevičiūtė and Ona Juciūtė
Acid Fountain was created for SUM, the culminating exhibition of a residency at the Alexander McQueen Sarabande Foundation. Cast from concrete, a primarily lime-based material, the fountain was filled with a weak acetic acid solution that gradually melted and eroded its structure over the course of the exhibition, while also catalysing new chemical bonds and formations.