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, nearby plants, and reservoir water. The 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 (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
Discussing their intentions behind the exhibition, the curators say: “From the moment you say a word or a fantastic image is conjured up in your head, when an HTML code is generated in the browser, when you enter the electromagnetic field of other bodies or a rain cloud forms over your head, to indefinitely long civilisational shifts or geological processes. In this exhibition, the artworks stumble on one another, meet in silent dialogue, scatter across the National Gallery of Art and enter into the nearby collection of art. Through the fragmented narrative we have invited viewers to exchange knowledge and beliefs that shape our daily reality into experiences lingering in the flow of different times and temporalities.”
The 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 our planet’shistory, spanning beyond the limits of human time and existence, which has led us to the present day. Janus’ sculpture is created using natural materials formed over different periods – salt, limestone, and human-made aluminum. When aluminium is affected by salt, natural chemical reactions occur, leading to slow and 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 to promote the artwork of emerging Lithuanian artists, raising its profile in Lithuania and abroad, and expanding the public interest in contemporary art.
Text by Echo Gone Wrong