Darius Rakauskas | Zaratustra Dionysus' Disciple
1st floor
. . . . . this is how Zarathustra spoke
This exposition is my speculative touch on the myth of Zarathustra created by the great 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Zarathustra, the enlightened one, who descended from a high mountain and proclaimed in the market square the Superman and the Last Man. It is a call to awareness, commitment and action. His word stirs, like music calling for a dance. To life. Not to scholasticism, speculation, elaborate schemes... as one of the protagonists of Hugo's novel, "The Cathedral of Paris", the flamboyant Jean, says: "Damn Aristotle! I don't want his metaphysics to ruin my only move."
Is that really so? The light of reason is still too small to encompass the metamorphoses of life over billions of light-years? It is always trailing behind. After life, classifying, labelling and humming. "Our minds are terribly primitive compared to the world, and yet they are the most precious things we have", said Einstein. Friends! Maybe let's turn off the light of reason! Let us look into the abyss, for God is dead. And the demons? Our animalistic beastly instincts? Foolish, but cunning and vigilant. Therefore, as the law of the jungle proclaims, "Every man for himself!" And then there's "Man to man is a wolf".
...by drawing from photographs, I am recreating a portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche as superman, as Zarathustra incarnate. I want the hand to show the mind how it really is.
Who is He to me, this enlightened one, touched by madness? Has he found or lost himself? "You are not you, but I am I", God once said to St. Catherine. But if God is dead now, is not our ego, that little bubble, the force that weighs the Universe?
2nd floor
„I am a Disciple of the Philosopher Dionysos”.
¹"Dionysus (Greek: Διώνυσος, Dionysos) in Greek mythology is the god of winemaking and ecstasy. He is associated with freedom, with the positive social influence (orgies) caused by wine. Dionysos is the god of the creative forces of nature. He is worshipped at night." / Wikipedia
The ancient Greeks knew of two energies: ZOI, the infinite impersonal energy that transcends everything, and BIOS, the personal energy that formalizes with a beginning and an end. Hence biology, biography. Dionysus represents ZOI.
So this exhibition is a reflection on the meeting of these two quantities in man. Consciousness, the subconscious, the body and the mind. Our young and childishly naive civilisation, science and culture, billions of years before the all-creating and all-destroying elements of samamus. It is a small ship sailing on a formless ocean. What do these elements have in common, can they understand each other? Ludwig Wittgenstein said that "If a lion began to speak with the voice of a man, we could not understand him".
To put this rather abstract situation into perspective, I have chosen the case of the famous 19th century German 'philosopher of life' Friedrich Nietzsche, who, among other things, declared himself to be a 'disciple of the philosopher Dionysius'. But sympathy for Dionysius is a dangerous sympathy. Sober, rationality did not save Friedrich from getting too close to a god who blurs boundaries (terms). And he (his mind) was torn to pieces, just like the Theban king Penphaeus (Euripides' tragedy The Bacchantes). Dionysus himself, by the way, was cut up and eaten by the Titans, who were courted by Hera (the hearth of the home, the patroness of the family). Martyred. Martyr, Martyr /English/ from Gr. Martyr, Martyrs, Martyrs - witness. To go mad, means to bear witness to Dionysus, to become a witness to Dionysus. And this is the greatest gift of a god to his followers. The ability to broadcast the eternal life energy of the world in a ZOI hurricane sweeping away e.g. the bio-graphy of an intelligent person.
Dionysius entered modernism through the philosophy of F. Nietzsche, and post-modernism through the analytical dream psychology of C. G. Jung, where the eternal worker,
Sisyphus' myth and the economy of work, is replaced by Dionysus' myth of pleasure and the economy of revolution.
The exhibition consists of two types of work: 'Dark' and 'Light'.
Dark - drawings and paintings. / Reflecting light / allusion to reflection /.
Light- Video projector, banners, luminescent objects. /Reflecting light / allusion to splitting energy/.
