Alongside Reality
Kristīne Upīte
22/01 - 28/02/2025
1. Speaking Things.
Alongside the chest of drawers, the pencil, the glass, the table, the stairs, the door
Well-designed things pass unnoticed. In everyday life, we rarely register a chest of drawers whose drawers open smoothly, a door that yields without effort, steps no one stumbles over, a pencil that glides across the page, or a glass that rests comfortably in the hand.
Things draw attention only when they suddenly fail us: when a drawer sticks, when a door hinge creaks and the handle breaks, when a pencil’s tip snaps, when a cracked glass threatens to cut our fingers.
Perhaps the best furnishings and pieces of furniture are those we hardly notice at all, their presence absorbed into a quiet, reliable ease of use.
But what happens if we set aside the view of things solely in terms of handiness or unhandiness? Might they then disclose themselves in their own being? In that case even broken things would not become mere remnants, but would continue to live a life of their own. Many philosophers and poets have wished to cross over to the side of things, where their observation would not be disturbed by a previously learned way of seeing, by habits, and by language.
One of these poets was Aleksandrs Čaks. In the story “The Chair” a ventilation window describes the language of things: “They understand only the simplest human words. Objects and things have their own language – not a very extensive one, but their own, an old language in which they converse. Even now I hear some objects speaking. Listen.”
We try to listen. It is possibly older than human language and therefore so unfamiliar. Yet, without knowing it, we hear only the creaking of steps, the clattering of drawers, the tinkling of a glass, knocks against the tabletop, the scratching of a pencil on paper. The language of things and their message are hidden from us behind these everyday sounds.
But what happens to someone who nevertheless crosses over to the side of things? Čaks warns against violating such a boundary. The hero of the story becomes a criminal in a dual sense. On the one hand, he turns against human relationships and kills his beloved because he trusts the stories of things. On the other hand, his transgression is directed against human essence. Therefore, at the end of the story, the judge warns us all: “No one may transgress the boundaries of their own being - whoever does so receives punishment.”
According to this warning, we must continue to live in the human world and forget the language of things forever.
2. Flowing Things. Alongside honey and flowing lines, under the roof.
The Latvian chemist Aleksandrs Janeks was a contemporary of Čaks. He spent a large part of his life in a chemistry laboratory, studying colloidal solutions. Possibly he had heard Čaks’s warning about crossing over to the side of things, but did not take it very seriously for a simple reason - he did not believe that things exist at all. If they do not exist, then no special world of things and no language of things is possible either.
Everything we think of as things is merely condensation. Flow characterizes the world. We see things only from one aspect. Moving around the house, opening a chest of drawers, drawing on paper, and so on - gradually seeing things from different angles or using them – our idea condenses into what we call a chest of drawers, a pencil, and the like. He called this doctrine epallelism.
Honey is the ideal “thing” in Janeks’s flowing world of condensates – it has high viscosity, does not spoil, can take on any form, and that form will always be the true one. However, such a world seems as though it would create many voids in unstable condensations and would require countless patches. Therefore, in the laboratory the scientist created various chemical compounds to solve the problem of voids and patches.
As an explanatory analogy for the necessity of this problem, Janeks used a leaky church roof in the rain. No one, of course, would build a new roof at such a time and would make do only with quickly applied patches. But sooner or later the problem of the leaky roof would have to be solved anyway.
3. Coniunctio. Alongside the cross
Alchemists called the process of combining substances chemical marriage. It was meant to ensure both physical and spiritual unity. Until this was achieved, the world remained a flow of unpurified substances, fallen away from their true essence. In a way, alchemists resemble the cooks of bygone times who, having put on aprons, stir brews over hot stove tops, which they later serve to the bride and groom at the wedding feast. In this way the attainment of unity was celebrated. The correct recipes that helped achieve it, however, had to be sought in long-forgotten books. On the pages of these books the uninitiated reader saw difficult to understand texts and various mysterious symbols. Among them one peculiar image could draw attention: a cross with a beehive at its center. The meaning of the cross and the hive becomes clearer if one understands the gathering of honey as a symbol of the inheritance of theosophical knowledge. By being alongside the cross, we can increasingly acquire hidden knowledge of the divine. Moreover, this knowledge is nourishing and, like honey, does not spoil. Next to the image of the cross there was a poem that the reader must decipher on their own.
I make honey
The death of the cross was accursed
In the view of God
Now it is entirely lovely
Through the judgment of Christ’s death
(Daniel Cramer, Emblemata Sacra, 1617)
Kristīne Upīte is an artist and painter who employs a wide range of techniques in her practice, including watercolor, folding paper and metal, ready-made objects, and textile works. Everyday objects often appear in her works, drawn from mass media, advertising, devotional items, museum exhibits, art history, or her personal daily life. These objects are transformed and rearranged, forming a fragmented, subjective, and dreamlike reality. The line frequently becomes a guiding motif in her works, evolving into figures that enact various events within the boundaries of the page. Kristīne Upīte graduated from the Painting Department (MA) of the Art Academy of Latvia and has participated in several exhibitions; the most recent is the solo exhibition “Gentle Primordiality” in Andris Eglītis’s installation Cube No. 4 (2025).
Text: Ainārs Kamoliņš
Graphic design: Elīna Salnāja
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation
Photo: Ieva Viese
Kristīne Upīte
22/01 - 28/02/2025
1. Speaking Things.
Alongside the chest of drawers, the pencil, the glass, the table, the stairs, the door
Well-designed things pass unnoticed. In everyday life, we rarely register a chest of drawers whose drawers open smoothly, a door that yields without effort, steps no one stumbles over, a pencil that glides across the page, or a glass that rests comfortably in the hand.
Things draw attention only when they suddenly fail us: when a drawer sticks, when a door hinge creaks and the handle breaks, when a pencil’s tip snaps, when a cracked glass threatens to cut our fingers.
Perhaps the best furnishings and pieces of furniture are those we hardly notice at all, their presence absorbed into a quiet, reliable ease of use.
But what happens if we set aside the view of things solely in terms of handiness or unhandiness? Might they then disclose themselves in their own being? In that case even broken things would not become mere remnants, but would continue to live a life of their own. Many philosophers and poets have wished to cross over to the side of things, where their observation would not be disturbed by a previously learned way of seeing, by habits, and by language.
One of these poets was Aleksandrs Čaks. In the story “The Chair” a ventilation window describes the language of things: “They understand only the simplest human words. Objects and things have their own language – not a very extensive one, but their own, an old language in which they converse. Even now I hear some objects speaking. Listen.”
We try to listen. It is possibly older than human language and therefore so unfamiliar. Yet, without knowing it, we hear only the creaking of steps, the clattering of drawers, the tinkling of a glass, knocks against the tabletop, the scratching of a pencil on paper. The language of things and their message are hidden from us behind these everyday sounds.
But what happens to someone who nevertheless crosses over to the side of things? Čaks warns against violating such a boundary. The hero of the story becomes a criminal in a dual sense. On the one hand, he turns against human relationships and kills his beloved because he trusts the stories of things. On the other hand, his transgression is directed against human essence. Therefore, at the end of the story, the judge warns us all: “No one may transgress the boundaries of their own being - whoever does so receives punishment.”
According to this warning, we must continue to live in the human world and forget the language of things forever.
2. Flowing Things. Alongside honey and flowing lines, under the roof.
The Latvian chemist Aleksandrs Janeks was a contemporary of Čaks. He spent a large part of his life in a chemistry laboratory, studying colloidal solutions. Possibly he had heard Čaks’s warning about crossing over to the side of things, but did not take it very seriously for a simple reason - he did not believe that things exist at all. If they do not exist, then no special world of things and no language of things is possible either.
Everything we think of as things is merely condensation. Flow characterizes the world. We see things only from one aspect. Moving around the house, opening a chest of drawers, drawing on paper, and so on - gradually seeing things from different angles or using them – our idea condenses into what we call a chest of drawers, a pencil, and the like. He called this doctrine epallelism.
Honey is the ideal “thing” in Janeks’s flowing world of condensates – it has high viscosity, does not spoil, can take on any form, and that form will always be the true one. However, such a world seems as though it would create many voids in unstable condensations and would require countless patches. Therefore, in the laboratory the scientist created various chemical compounds to solve the problem of voids and patches.
As an explanatory analogy for the necessity of this problem, Janeks used a leaky church roof in the rain. No one, of course, would build a new roof at such a time and would make do only with quickly applied patches. But sooner or later the problem of the leaky roof would have to be solved anyway.
3. Coniunctio. Alongside the cross
Alchemists called the process of combining substances chemical marriage. It was meant to ensure both physical and spiritual unity. Until this was achieved, the world remained a flow of unpurified substances, fallen away from their true essence. In a way, alchemists resemble the cooks of bygone times who, having put on aprons, stir brews over hot stove tops, which they later serve to the bride and groom at the wedding feast. In this way the attainment of unity was celebrated. The correct recipes that helped achieve it, however, had to be sought in long-forgotten books. On the pages of these books the uninitiated reader saw difficult to understand texts and various mysterious symbols. Among them one peculiar image could draw attention: a cross with a beehive at its center. The meaning of the cross and the hive becomes clearer if one understands the gathering of honey as a symbol of the inheritance of theosophical knowledge. By being alongside the cross, we can increasingly acquire hidden knowledge of the divine. Moreover, this knowledge is nourishing and, like honey, does not spoil. Next to the image of the cross there was a poem that the reader must decipher on their own.
I make honey
The death of the cross was accursed
In the view of God
Now it is entirely lovely
Through the judgment of Christ’s death
(Daniel Cramer, Emblemata Sacra, 1617)
Kristīne Upīte is an artist and painter who employs a wide range of techniques in her practice, including watercolor, folding paper and metal, ready-made objects, and textile works. Everyday objects often appear in her works, drawn from mass media, advertising, devotional items, museum exhibits, art history, or her personal daily life. These objects are transformed and rearranged, forming a fragmented, subjective, and dreamlike reality. The line frequently becomes a guiding motif in her works, evolving into figures that enact various events within the boundaries of the page. Kristīne Upīte graduated from the Painting Department (MA) of the Art Academy of Latvia and has participated in several exhibitions; the most recent is the solo exhibition “Gentle Primordiality” in Andris Eglītis’s installation Cube No. 4 (2025).
Text: Ainārs Kamoliņš
Graphic design: Elīna Salnāja
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation
Photo: Ieva Viese