- EXHIBITIONS

Philosopher’s gaze

2008.02.25 - 2008.03.02
Vilniaus fotografijos galerija (Stiklių g. 4)

The 25th of February (Monday) at 18:00 is the opening day of the exhibition “Philosopher’s gaze”. Arranged by photographer Gintautas Trimakas, the exhibition features the photography of Arvydas M. Šliogeris (Vilnius University) and Jonas Dagys (Vilnius University) and the graphic works of Arūnas Gelūnas (Vilnius Academy of Arts).
The three authors did not happen to be in company accidentally: although only one of them is a professional artist, the thing in common is their being professional philosophers.

© Jonas Dagys

The three authors did not happen to be in company accidentally: although only one of them is a professional artist, the thing in common is their being professional philosophers. The exhibition of artistic quest of the philosophers is part of a major event bearing the same name. “Philosopher’s gaze” is rather a question raised by philosophers: does it differ in any way from the gaze of the artist, especially if the philosopher strips away the verbal language and employs the visual one instead? What makes the visual language important to a philosopher in a visual culture? And maybe it is means of expression that make use of the speaker, and a philosopher without conceptual apparatus disappears as such and joins the artists? Therefore what you can expect is not an artistic exhibition of the usual kind: it is rather a pretext to raise questions in a visual language, which is attractive and widely comprehensible and, from the philosopher’s point of view, requiring one more step of ‘translation’. Therefore we expect that the exposition will become a catalyst of ideas and invite fanciers of philosophy and art as well as professionals to take part in a discussion (which will take place on the 29th of February). Another project of the overall event is a DVD created by J. Dagys and N. Milerius (it will be presented on the 28th of February).

Jonas Dagys works as a lecturer at Vilnius University and specializes especially in contemporary philosophy of mind; he was a participant of several exhibitions of photography. According to Jonas, “Looking through photo-objective is in some way similar to a child’s looking at the world through colourful or curved splinters of glass”. One may think that the childlike wonder, certain ‘filtration’ of the world, playing with shatters or beads of glass is exactly the thing that relates philosophy and art, but Jonas Dagys does not bond these two spheres of his own activity.

Arūnas Gelūnas is a distinguished artist, philosopher, associate professor of Vilnius Academy of Arts, lecturer at the Centre of Oriental Studies of Vilnius University. Gelūnas has been pursuing the graphic art professionally for more than ten years. His artistic biography is marked by quests, analysis of influences, dialogue, and questioning, which are essential signs of philosophy. Arūnas Gelūnas himself once mentioned graphics to be a „means“. It is high time to ask: „means“ for what?

Arvydas Šliogeris became struck by passion for photography quite recently. Philosophical works of professor of Vilnius University are widely known as is his attitude towards language as obstacle to being philosopher par excellence, as it hinders to „hear“ the thing which is „language-less“. It seems that it is this possibility to hear language-less things that has to do with Šliogeris’ admiration of photography. Professor Šliogeris is ready to present his views on photography as a real philosopher is supposed to: in form of „photosophy“.

© Arvydas Šliogeris

Exhibition will run at Vilnius photography gallery (Stiklių g. 4) from 25th of February to the 1st of March.
More on the event and its programme: www.lrt.lt/zvilgsnis.