When The Sun Is Low—The Shadows Are Long

Artists: Alexander Adamov, Irina Anufrieva, Bazinato, Evelina Domnitch/Dmitry Gelfand, Jazep Drazdovič, Zhanna Gladko, Jan Helda , Siarhei Hudzilin, Zahar Kudin, Siarhiej Leskiec, Masha Maroz, Aliona Pazdniakova, Anton Sarokin, Ala Savashevich, Olga Sazykina, Sergey Shabohin, Jura Shust, Anna Sokolova, Władysław Strzemiński, Masha Svyatogor

Curator: Anna Karpenko

Arsenal Gallery in Białystok
April 1–May 13, 2022
Opening: April 1, 2022, 6pm 

GfZK—Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig
June 10–September 25, 2022

The Evil of the past weeks speaks for itself; the death and ruines have eliminated humanity. Deprived people from what they think of as fundamental civil structures. The language, explaining the world based on the logic of rationality. How about explaining the world to the world in two words?

This “new” alphabet appeared, not on February 24, 2022, but decades, years and centuries ago. The set of order, based on power and oppression to conquer through rigid structures, abuse and violence, in all its different forms, and toward all living beings.

“Whereof one cannot speak thereof, one must be silent” is the sentence that L. Wittgenstein ended his “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” with. The total weakness of logical structures in an attempt to describe the world. Speechlessness as a new reality.

Being silent is scary.

We are sitting in an archaic cave depicting the shadows on the walls, questioning ourselves whether it’s the sunrise or the sunset.

We decided not to cancel the exhibition When the Sun Is Low—The Shadows Are Long and to open it on April 1, 2022 at Arsenal Gallery (Bialystok, Poland) and on June 10, 2022 at GFZK (Leipzig, Germany) in solidarity and a deep sorrow for all Ukrainian people, and with beliefs to freedom for Belarus. —Anna Karpenko, curator (Belarus), March 10, 2022

We have been working on the exhibition When the Sun Is Low—the Shadows Are Long for nearly a year, the event intended from day one as a gesture of solidarity with Belarus in her struggle for freedom and democracy. Caused and incited by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the current war is proof of under how much threat these values are today. —Monika Szewczyk, Director, Arsenal Gallery in Białystok

Belarussian philosopher Ihar Babkou dubbed Belarus the “Kingdom of Ruins” in reference to a history of abandonment and orphanhood, coupled with an extraordinary wealth of this place that the media often calls the “terra incognita.” “Ruins” delineate the boundaries of every civilisation’s repatriation to “Nature.” Shadows of the past become the harbinger of our attempts to interpret, visualise, and embrace a trace of times haunted by absence and persecution. The longer the shadows, the less our chance of discovering the truth about the objects that cast them.

The exhibition When The Sun Is Low—The Shadows Are Long offers a view of a historical and contemporary context of Belarussian art, revealing intricate interconnections between the deep archaic nature of human beings in social, political and cultural dimensions, and a timorous desire to break the vicious cycle of repressive regimes and their systems. —Anna Karpenko
 

Project by
Arsenal Gallery in Białystok
GfZK—Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig
Goethe-Institut Warsaw

Supported by
The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, Martin Roth Initiative