A-Type Complex, 2024
Sculptural Installation
Construction grids, coal, reflective foil, screen, series of sculptures made of chicken wire, plaster and engine oil
Height 255 cm / ⌀ 260 cm
A-Type Complex is the title of the igloo-like hemisphere woven from salvaged, rusty construction grids. Inside is a display of human figures, either upright or sitting down, and neither female nor male; not individuals as such, but rather forms of human existence. Their bodies are open, raw and permeable, reminiscent of survivors of a catastrophe. Gintarė Sokelytė creates them out of plaster, malleable and porous at the same time, then paints them with burnt engine oil. The mineral oil is viscous and toxic, and yet, at the same time, it is the fluid that kept the engine of the industrial age running.
The floor is covered with coal from which the human figures rise up, their bodies hollowed, ravaged and reduced, as if by fire, to their essential form. And beneath them there is a monitor screen. Time holds a special significance in Sokelytė’s work. It continues to tick relentlessly, and yet repeatedly returns to a starting point. This special significance is exemplified by her fascination with George Woodcock’s book The Tyranny of the Clock. Time, rhythm and measurement are seen as distinguishing features between early societies and people in the modern era — time as a structure and order that determines the life and experience of individuals. Above the lattice igloo-like structure hangs a mirror, doubling its hemispherical shape, and the memory of an hourglass is suggested in the reflection. Time and transience, the past and the ever recurring, seen as eternal principles of all life.