On 10 January, Vilnius City Hall and Vilnius City Gallery Meno Niša invite you to the opening of two exhibitions by artists living in Belgium. These are the exhibition As if Night Were Dreaming of Day by the award-winning Lithuanian artist Paulius Šliaupa and the exhibition Agency of Matter by Belgian artist Manu Engelen, who is presenting his work in Lithuania for the first time. The opening of both exhibitions will take place on 10 January, 6 pm, at Vilnius City Hall.
P. Šliaupa’s collaboration with Belgian artist Manu Engelen began during their residency in Ghent, Belgium. While working together at the HISK residency and traveling, the artists got to know each other even better and thus started a dialogue between their different works. “Together we want to shed light on the structures of images, patterns of observation, poetic energy, and man’s relationship with technology,” said the Belgian-based artist on the idea of the two joint exhibitions.
Manu Engelen (b. 1984) lives and works in Leuven, Belgium. He holds a Master of Arts degree from Kunstacademie Münster in 2017, a Master of Arts degree from Kunstacademie Münster in 2010, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, Haselte in 2009. In 2021, he participated in the HISK residency in Ghent. In 2020, the Flemish community acquired his works, which are currently housed at SMAK Ghent. Manu’s second solo exhibition took place at Callewaert & Vanlangendonck Gallery in 2020, and since 2022, he has collaborated with Gallery Ponti in Antwerp.
More about the exhibition (text by P.Šliaupa):
In the exhibition Agency of Matter, the Belgian artist Manu Engelen presents paintings that depict energy – from the mechanical to the nuclear. In his work, he uses motifs and concepts from science and geometry. His fascination with technological artifacts and their fragments inspires him to combine the sensory and the poetic realms. Industrial motifs are transformed into allegoric expressions, turbines become abstract wall paintings, and the silhouettes of airplanes are translated into laconic forms.
Since childhood, Manu has been surrounded by models and various vehicles – his dad was a pilot and the two of them used to visit airplane shows together. This experience has enabled him to form a unique sensibility, blending the poetics of everyday life with mechanical templates. As a child, Manu would climb into car graveyards, exploring the broken, crushed, and cut-up luxury vehicles. Later, while studying at PXL MAD Hasselt Academy of Arts, he sliced the fuselage of an F84 jet plane into five uneven parts, showcasing them as his graduation work in an exhibition space.
Combining the fragments of contemporary technology with the tradition of painting, Manu’s works seamlessly merge the logic of technology and the poetics of painting. The synergy of nostalgia and humour is evoked through contrasting hues and recognisable forms. In Manu’s words, “I admire the way things are constructed and produced. How, for example, airplanes can function. As a painter, I feel it is impossible to grasp the principles of how they work; they seem like impossible apparatuses. It’s like trying to grasp what power is. The moment we try to grasp it, we lose our words”. Manu’s admiration for humanity’s technological achievements carries a philosophical sentiment – a respect for human creation and for the creative process itself, opening up the possibility of acquiring knowledge.
Manu’s paintings invite viewers into an abstract world of technological fragments. He seeks to explore atmospheres, bridging the gap between the ideal and the tangible image, between templates and the mundane. Immersed in the process of creation, the painting becomes a continuation of ideas shaped by hand and brush. In his artworks, moving technologies serve as a means to capture the creative movement. The motionless, exposed engine, having lost its function, transforms into an abstract form comprised of repetitive details and voids, drawing the viewer into unknown spaces. Manu explores the fields of physics and astronomy, with his paintings embodying geometrical precision and the aesthetics of blueprints. In his other works, an expansive white backdrop transforms into the boundless vastness of space, revealing astronomical bodies. Manu strives to impart a sensation of subdued speed achievable by man solely through mechanics. The disembodied rational technologies become a tool to convey the unknown part of everyday life within his paintings.
Manu Engelen’s exhibition Agency of Matter will be open at Vilnius City Hall until 27 January. The organizers of the exhibition are Vilnius City Gallery Meno Niša and Vilnius City Hall.
The exhibition is funded by the Flanders, State of the Art
