Night Talks: Group Show - London

The physiological need for sleep, despite its temporal and spatial variations, has remained consistent throughout history, however, the discourse regarding sleep changes based on cultural and political conditions. In Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov dismisses the notion of sleep: “[…] I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, and genius.”

Danysz Gallery presents Night Talks, an online exhibition of works that allude to the reflective processes occurring at night. Works of nine artists are exhibited together to revive the imaginary nighttime. 

When you stay up at night, what do you see? You might see outlines of buildings, people’s faces at sleep or awake. You might be calm or restless. There is the idea of a recurring thought, like a memory of someone’s face occupying your mind (or fragments of a face sinking into the dark background as in Vhils’ Defragmentation 5)—but mostly night is a time for dreams; the light touch, feathers that allude to pillows, softness – as is the case of Maleonn’s White on White 3.

Night is often the time when artists get active and embark on their “nocturnal labors” (Nabokov). View of a reality changes at night. This slight shift of perception allows for a shift in a narrative.

Objects look different; sometimes elongated and reminiscent of David Moreno’s houses, and sometimes, like in the case of James McNabb’s Control C - bended. This conception of insomnia, as both productive conceptually and reflectively, counters the traditional conception of sleep as related to economic productivity in the capitalist model; with sleeplessness “the workplace is everywhere; work time is all the time” (Blanchot).

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

—Edgar Alan Poe

When Marion Peck painted Owl Dream, she established a unique perspective on nighttime. Placed in a garden, there is a solitary bed and her, who dreams. The landscape of the girl’s phantasies seems to be inescapable. This kind of perpetual dreaming blurs the line between dream and wakefulness. The imagery is hallucinatory; making it difficult to distinguish sleeping from waking consciousness.