How do you approach a landscape without calling it by name? In his multimedia project “The Inceptive Ground, texture volume 01” shown in Bildraum 01, the artist and architect Jurgis Gečys frees himself from predefined knowledge of an environment: from its geographical designation, its historical context, and its cartographic boundaries. The artist reverses the question of psychologist James J. Gibson, when does perceiving end and remembering begin (1979), into: When does memory end and perception begin? To lose himself in a seemingly endless landscape, he embarked on a solo expedition by bicycle along the 70th west longitude of the Southern Hemisphere, surrounded by the driest deserts in the north to the eternal ice in the south.

In his observations, the artist takes up comprehensive sections of structures of the earth’s surface. These are expressed through pictorial abstraction in analog black-and-white photographs and sculptures. Subtle in their realization, his meticulous large-scale hand drawings, created over years through ink dots, take center stage. The works seek to articulate the complexity of multisensory perception of self and environment. Linear constellations of dots refer to visual and tactile properties of the ground that can evoke primal emotions. These open up a space unprecedented before, enabling the experience of a new identity that unfolds between man and nature -The Inceptive Ground.

“Drawing the landscape is both frightening and liberating, like the first step in exploring an unknown continent. Beyond the measurable – point by point, step by step, from the single grain of sand to texture to shape and space – nature is continuously shaping the ground, as well as my body and mind. Through these observations, I forgot who I am, forgot my predetermined identity – and was able to make space for something free.”

For more information, visit Jurgis Gečys’ website: Jurgis Gečys.

A cooperation of Bildrecht with Vienna Art Week. A programming partnership with the Rotlicht Festival. Kindly supported by BMKÖS and Atelier TEJE.

Accessibility: threshold at the entrance.