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Vitality and Change in Lithuanian Photography
Excerpts from the exhibition catalogue
Feb. 17 to March 19, 1995, Gahlberg Gallery, Arts Center
Lithuanian Photography, A History
By Algimantas Kezys
Lithuanian photography began in the year 1854 when the daguerreotype specialist
Rubenstein came to Vilnius from Warsaw, setting up his studio on Vokieciu Street.
By 1863 several studios were operating in the city of Vilnius, including that of
Sveikovskis, known for his portraits and scenes of the city of Vilnius. Abdonas
Lorzunas’ atelier was closed by order of the Russian General N.M Muravjo for
producing documentary portraits of the freedom fighters who fought in the 1863
uprising against the Russian occupation of Lithuania. The portraits found in his
studio were destroyed, and Lorzunas was deported. By the end of the 19th century,
more and more studio photographers started moving outdoors, photographing the
Lithuanian landscapes and cityscapes. J, Cechovicius was the first to massproduce and commercially distribute photographs of the city of Vilnius, while S. Fleri
is credited with pioneering the social photography of the city marketplaces.
At the beginning of the 20th century and especially after World War I, the
photographic activity in Lithuania gained stature and prestige. In 1933 the Society
of Amateur Photographers (Lietuvos Foto Megeju Sajunga) was founded. During
the short period between the two World Wars, when Lithuania enjoyed
independence from Russia, there were feverish developments in photography, both
artistic and commercial. A number of devoted practitioners emerged as artists
documenting the life and state of the newborn state.
[…] After World War II when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union for the
second time, photographic activity in Lithuania was notably diminished. The artistic
output was non-existent for more than a decade. The photography produced under
supervision of the State was stale, artificial and consciously embellished to project
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the "bright" side of life under communism. It was years later that these dire
conditions were lightened, and the freedom of expression, to some degree,
restored.
In 1958, the first exhibition by photojournalists was organized in Vilnius. Prizes for
best pictures were awarded, and first prize went to V. Stanionis from the town of
Alytus. After the initial success, it became clear that some kind of association for
working photographers would be needed to promote artistic expression. The
photographers' section was established within the framework of the Association of
Journalists. In 1959, another exhibition of photographs was curated and a catalog
was published, the first photographic publication since the end of the war. A group
show representing the best artist photography in Lithuania was subsequently sent
abroad visiting Prague, Bucharest, Berlin and Paris. Soon afterwards the National
Committee of Photographers, with local chapters in the provinces, was established
within the Association of Journalists. There followed annual and semiannual
shows, in which names of individual photographers began to emerge. L. Ruikas. R.
Rakaukas, M. Baranaukas, A. Sutkus, and I. Vaicekauskas became torchbearers of
artistic photography in Lithuania at the time.
A number of local photographers took part in these shows who were not members
of the Association of Journalists, creating the impetus to form an independent
chapter of artist-photographers, which was first organized in Kaunas in 1966. It
was spearheaded by V.Jasinevicius, under whose leadership the Kaunas group
organized a show and published a catalog. In this publication, the novel view of
photography as an art form was stressed (this was about the same time as when
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the question of photography versus art was debated in the United States.)
Rationalizing that photography was, after all, a legitimate form of artistic expression
allowing the photographer to express on film his views and emotions in a
subjective manner, the new group of independent photographers in Lithuania took
a bolder stance against the imposed and stale documentation promoted by the
officialdom. Among these bold pioneers, we find the name of soon-to-become
masters of Lithuanian photograph: A. Macijauskas, V Butyrinas and V Luckus.
The first solo exhibitions also came into being in Kaunas. These shows did a lot to
promote the notion that photographs were being respected as works of fine art.
The Kaunas group gave shows to out-of-state photographers, including those from
Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Warsaw. It also started organizing
annual exhibitions by the photographers from the three Baltic States (Lithuania,
Latvia and Estonia), which eventually became traditional events called The Amber
Country, exhibitions that are continued to this day.
In 1968 the photographers of Vilnius joined the Kaunas group’s venture by
producing a memorable show of the four best known artists – R. Rakauskas and V.
Naujikas from Kaunas, and A. Sutkus and A. Kuncius from Vilnius. This show was
accepted for exhibition at the Lithuanian Art Museum Vilnius meaning that
photographs were finally accepted by the officials as works of art. The doors were
opened for a wider international exchange – Lithuanian photography exhibitions
went to Canada, Argentina, France, Holland, Belgium and Poland, as well as in the
republics of the former Soviet Union.
It must be noted again that most of this activity took place in the towns of the
provinces, which takes us to the city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The Vilnius
group decided to test the strength of Lithuanian photography on a grand scale. In
1969 it produced a show by the nine best-known photographers (“9 Lietuvos
fotografai”) and took it to Moscow. The press called it a “triumph”. The reviewers
used the show to proclaim again and again the validity of photography as an art
form, extolling some of the exhibited works as being “world class”. They pointed
out the distinction between the thematic and the aesthetic aspects in the pictures
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and that the “true spirit” of photographic art consisted in the perfect balance of the
two. And there were voices announcing the establishment of the “Lithuanian
Tradition” in this newly discovered art. The following photographers participated:
A. Sutkus, A. Macijauskas, R. Rakaukas, A. Kuncius, M. Barnauskas, R Ruikas, V.
Butyrinas, V. Luckus and A. Miezauskas.
That same year, on the initiative taken by this group, the Cabinet of the Ministers of
Lithuanian SSR adopted the resolution “Concerning the Establishment of the
Lithuanian SSR Photography Art Society, by which the Ministry of Culture was
obligated to subsidize the activity of this society. A. Sutkus was chosen as its
president. The administrative body at first consisted of three paid staff members,
but later the number was increased. During the first four years of its existence, the
society organized more than 100 exhibitions both locally and abroad. There were
group and solo shows in Lithuania and international exchange programs were
expanded and well attended.
The existence of a State supported Society of Artistic Photography was not only a
first, but it was also unique in the entire former Soviet Union and it accounts for the
success the Lithuanian photographers have enjoyed both nationally and
internationally. By 1978 the Society had 326 members and candidates. The Board
of Directors consisted of 13 persons, and the executive branch employed 35
qualified members. The Society boasted of producing over 100 exhibitions
annually. Over the years it brought home more than 450 national and international
awards, medals and honorable mentions credited to its artists.
The political and social upheavals of the early 1990s brought substantial changes
in the artistic communities in the entire former Soviet Union, including Lithuania.
But the Society continues its existence despite the drastic changes from
centralized to free market economy in the now independent Lithuania. The staff is
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temporarily reduced, as the membership does not feel the strong pull of the
“National Association of Lithuanian Photographers,” which at the present time is
headed by the Lithuanian Master Photographers at College of DuPage in Glen
Ellyn, IL, has been supplied in part by this association and by individual
photographers.
The main participants in the exhibition are the following:
Aleksandras Macijauskas (b. 1938) studied philosophy and then worked in a
machine-tool plant for many years before becoming a professional photographer.
Since 1969 he has been winning awards not only in his native Lithuania, but also in
other parts of Europe, including former Czekoslavakia (1969), former Yugoslavia
(1973), France (1975), Switzerland (1978) and elsewhere. His works are in the
collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Musee Reattu, Aries, France;
Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Fribourg, Switzerland; and the University Art Museum of
New Mexico,Albuquerque, NM, San Francisco YIuseum ofArt, and the International
Center of Photography, New York. His best known essays are "Lithuanian village
Markets," "The Veterinary Clinic," "Summer," "Parades," and "Footprints in the
Seashore." Selections from these series were published in a monograph, My
Lithuania (Thames and Hudson, New York, 1991).
Macijauskas is a keen documentarian of life around him. He developed a style of
realism imbued with highly charged emotional and intellectual content. By using
wide and superwide optics Macijauskas was able to elevate mundane and
otherwise conventional objects into the sphere of the surreal and the allegorical. He
knows the people he is photographing, who in turn provide him with wonderful
opportunities to bring out the best in their personalities and their way of life.
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[…] The show concentrates on the documentary, the human interest approach. The
uniqueness of this style (if there is such a thing as uniqueness in documentation)
lies in the area of subject matter rather than in the peculiarity of esthetics. The
authors in this show are genuinely patriotic Lithuanians following in the footsteps of
their predecessors - people like Jan Bulhakas or Jonas Buracas - who criss-cross
the country photographing its cities, its lakes, the people and their everyday work.
The fact that most of the working photographers in Lithuania today have had the
misfortune of having been ostracized from the influences of the Western world for
most of their active years as photographers also contributed to their immersion in
photographing subjects close to their home. Their "backyard" mentality paid off. In
their photographs there is the feeling of familiarity, the joy of discovery, the
challenge of finding something new in the old and the familiar, the sense of urgency
to preserve the passing moment as something precious and worth saving. One
phrase that would best summarize the approach these photographers are using is
probably this: They are in love with their own roots, and they treasure their own
ethnicity, which in their estimation is unique, holy and pure. This attitude embodies
the feeling that includes romantic and uplifting overtones. In their works there is no
trace of any kind of negativity. The conscious downgrading or malicious expose of
the ugly and the evil is notably lacking even in the subjects that would allow and
sometimes demand a different interpretation. The people of Lithuania are portrayed
here as dignified in their sufferings, unconquered in their political defeats, conscious
of their inner strength as members of the human race, struggling for survival and for
decency in the harsh world in which they live.
Vitality in Lithuanian Photography
By Leah Ollman
December 1994
[…]
Belief and disbelief charge through our era with equally persuasive claims. Ours is
a time of pride, it is a time of shame. Faith and cynicism are not mutually exclusive.
The photographs in this collection, so filled with confidence in humanity, also
whisper, under their breath, of despair. Lithuanians must live with such
contradictions. Theirs is an old country, with a history nearly as long as the
millennium. Yet it is also newborn – newly untethered, breathing independently, at
last taking possession of its native talents. In the spring on 1990, Lithuania became
politically independent, but for centuries its people had exercised a stubborn,
spiritual independence, an endurance linking Lithuanians on foreign soil and at
home on the shores of the Baltic.
That spirit has become legendary – a deep internal resource as precious and
radiant as the country’s rich lode of amber, as the photographers here attest. Few,
if any, focus directly on the rot and rust, the wounds, weaknesses or wrongs.
Rather, they celebrate beauty, life, the land, and faith in God and in the future. They
exude an unwavering determination to seize this life and not let its very essence be
stolen, even as its trappings are trounced by hostile forces. ‘Optimism means a way
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of life, not just jolly people’, asserts the photographer Aleksandras Macijauskas,
accounting for the unabashed vitality in his pictures, as in the culture he represents.
These photographs focus on the fundamental loci of life – the home, the school, the
place of exchange, the place of worship, the land. By concentrating on the basic,
everyday rhythms of living (as opposed to glorifying the political superstratum that is
supposed to dictate those rhythms), the images serve as valuable documents of
Lithuanian self-determination and self-definition. That, in itself, gives such seemingly
benign photographs a subversive cast. They defy the delusory optimism of the
socialist realism to favor instead the authentic humanism of the Lithuanian spirit –
earthy, intimate, and steeped in tradition.
These images are bold declarations of presence and persistence. They embody, in
the words of photography editor Leah Bendavid-Val, a deep faith in photography
and an attempt ‘to replace political fiction with photographic fact.’ Cutting through
generations of foreign occupation and oppression to identify the basic currents of
life has been a struggle for photographers in Lithuania and throughout the former
Soviet Union. It has been a question of spiritual survival but on a more mundane
level, it has also been a matter of learning to express oneself without a full range of
options, due to the regime’s tight control over information and culture.
( gallery.clcillinois.edu/pdf/vitalitychangelithuanian.pdf )
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The Lithuanian SSR Society of Art Photography (1969–1989) An
image production network
By Vytautas Michelkevičius
Translated by Jurij Dobriakov
The LSSR Society of Art Photography was established in 1969 in the Lithuanian
Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR), and remained the only professional art
photography organisation throughout the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR) until as late as1989. In 1989 it was reorganised into the Union of
Lithuanian Art Photographers, which continues to be active today.
[…] The conception of Art photography as a separate sphere of the usage of the
photographic medium had already become accepted in Lithuania by 1960 (the
process of its establishment culminated in the foundation of the FMD), and this idea
continued to dominate until the declaration of Lithuanian independence. The
Moscow-based critics defined the local variant of the medium’s usage as the
“Lithuanian school of photography” (further referred to as LFM): it had already
become the object of discussions by 1969, when the initiative group of what was to
become the LSSR Society of Art Photography presented the exhibition 9 Lithuanian
Photographers14 to the whole of the Soviet Union. The term was coined by Anri
Vartanov and Konstantin Vishniavecki and first used in the magazine Советское
фото (Anninski 2009: 6). These critics noted and drew attention to the affinity that
existed between the works of the authors who had participated in the exhibition and
would later form the core of the FMD – Antanas Sutkus, Algimantas Kunčius, Vitas
Luckus, Marius Baranauskas, Liudvikas Ruikas, Romualdas Rakauskas, Antanas
Miežanskas, Vitaly Butyrin and Aleksandras Macijauskas (Vartanov 1997: 10-11).
The following notions were employed to describe this affinity: ethnographic content,
reportage aesthetic, psychologism, serialism (making pictures in series), and
“metaphorical artistic form”15.
The contours and principles of the Lithuanian school of photography were
delineated by the Russian art critic Lev Anninski in his monograph Saulė šakose:
apybraižos apie lietuvių fotografiją (Sun in the Branches: Essays on Lithuanian
Photography, originally published in Russian in 1984, translated into Lithuanian in
2009). Anninski became the principal legitimator of the LFM’s style and discourse,
calling it a “national school” and grounding its logic upon the uniformity of the
photographers’ intentions, since they were united by “connections and interaction,
the same view of the world, an idiosyncratic structure of creative work, and a shared
set of moral concerns” (Anninski 2009: 11). Moreover, Anninski pointed out that it
was the series as opposed to the single photograph that was the basic aesthetic
unit of the LFM (Anninski 2009:11-12), which meant that it should be viewed as a
narrative-based form – in other words, Lithuanian photograpahy was concerned
with telling a certain story.
In addition to the authors and their creative intentions, the context in which they
acted was also important to the formation of a school and its style: “This is not just
R. Rakauskas’ or A. Sutkus’ style; rather, this is the common style of their time
which they have adopted, a shared point of departure.” (Anninski 2009: 13) This
means that the dispositif of art photography not only united, but also shaped its
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actors through a uniform style that embodied the philosophical attitudes,
regulations, and institutional rules of the time. In accordance with Anninski, another
Russian art critic and communication theorist Anri Vartanov confirmed that the
common features of the school were:
a) A shared theme (“narrating the story of one’s nation, its life and work, and the
land in which it lives” (Vartanov 1997: 11);
b) The fusion of the principles of documentary and art photography (“They [the
representatives of the school] employed the methods of photojournalism (concealed
and ordinary camera, un-staged situations, direct contact with the protagonist),
although their objectives were more typical of art photography (the creation of a
finished image that is characterised by a unity of content, form, and style)” (Vartanov
1997: 12).
The stylistic affinities that were noted by these outside actors can be similarly
understood within the network, i.e. by the photographers themselves; where such
affinities are successfully, disseminated by both the internal and the external actors
of the network. The Photographer Algimantas Kunčius argued that the “school”
referred to what united them, their shared worldview and values (Interview with
Kunčius 2009). Furthermore, Kunčius stated that the task of the art of photography
was not just to take photographs independently, but also to produce prints of high
quality using the inherent features of the medium of photography itself: contrast,
tonality, brightness, grain, etc.):
There was a school [of Lithuanian photography that united us], so you had to do
everything right, but you couldn’t, since the quality of the film was poor, and that
was when you would become inventive. <…> I simply wanted to achieve what was
necessary for a school to exist, what was peculiar to photography, what it conveyed
(Interview with Kunčius 2009).
Thus, prowess in the creation of photographic images and the skilful use of the
qualities of the medium itself were one of the most important threads that bound the
LFM together. The second link was a common range of themes (the main thematic
discourse strands); themes which the photography and film critic Skirmantas
Valiulis delineated in the following way in his introduction to the third issue of the
Lietuvos fotografija almanac (1971): “the love of one’s native land and its hardworking people, modernity of thought, and firm humanistic stance”. This description
contains the period’s standard discursive formula, one which was constantly
reproduced. The third shared trait is serialism – the viewer became familiar with the
Lithuanian art photographer’s work through the photographers continued
exploration of the same themes (Macijauskas’ Kaimo turgūs (Village Markets)
(1969-1987), Straukas’ Paskutinis skambutis (The Last Bell) (1975-1987),
Rakauskas’ Žydėjimas (Blooming) (1974-1984), and so on).
(http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://leidykla.vda.lt/images/books/1336136616file1.pdf&sa=U&ei=uKz-UMqlKM_Y0QWV1YDQDA&ved=0CCUQFjAEODw&usg=AFQjCNEjmugmU0SeLJWgvScmaklGXkqaQ )
Salty Past: Aleksandras Macijauskas and Antanas Sutkus
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Galerija Loža (Obalne galerije Piran), Koper (June 6-20, 1997); Mestna galerija
Ljubljana (June 30-July 1, 1997)
The following text is from the exhibition catalogue, written by Raminta Jurenaite.
During the "Period of thaw" - in the late 50s - the creation of Antanas Sutkus and
Aleksandras Macijauskas made a decisive influence on the photography of the
former Soviet Union.
In order to perceive the impact of those works during the period of their creation
and first exhibitions one should be aware of the conditions of the period in the
former Soviet Union. The Baltic States, which were the last ones incorporated into
the Soviet Union, enjoyed greater liberalism in the sphere of art in comparison with
the whole empire. However, there existed greater restrictions than in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Slovenia. The "period of thaw" diminished the
fierceness of totalitarianism but did not abolish it. That period witnessed certain
mass psychosis. Almost each representative of intelligentsia was convinced that
security services listened to their telephone conversations. Actually, it was not being
practiced, because it would have been a too great luxury for the State. Such
irrational phobias were caused by some real manifestations of the activity carried
out by the KGB and the services associated with it.
Up to the period of the Gorbachev perestroika, people could not go on journeys,
there was no freedom of press, there, actually, had been functioning a paralysing
system of partial prohibitions and a "positive censorship", which not really pointed
out what was prohibited but rather determined what and how one should paint,
make films, take photographs, write, publish and show.
In Lithuania, very few artists supported an official state ideology however, the
majority of them contributed to it by way of bigger or smaller compromises,
"cunning" negotiations or simple silence. In such atmosphere, every frank opinion or
a hint would always find a broad response.
The photographs by Antanas Sutkus and Aleksandras Macijauskas as well as by
the like-minded photo artists served as a kind of revival for the public. A political
contents in them was reflected indirectly, but its language was lucid enough to
understand. Everyday life with its routine troubles returned to the photographs of
Sutkus and Macijauskas. The very fact that they disclosed the lack of elementary
welfare expressed great courage. The rough truth was perceived as a socially
critical allegory.
( http://www.scca-ljubljana.si/salty-past.htm )
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Les Rencontres Arles Photographie 2009 Edition
Presented by MARTIN PARR, born in 1952 in United Kingdom. Lives and works in
Bristol. Photographer, collector and exhibition curator. Guest curator of the
Rencontres d'Arles in 2004.
“Rimaldas Viksraitis is a Lithuanian photographer who works in and around the
villages where he lives, photographing a way of life that is fast disappearing. In his
world, any apparent dysfunctionality, propelled by the liberal consumption of home
brew, appears to be an asset, because people seem to be having such a great time.
He goes to the parties, he sits and drinks and talks with his subjects. Their lives are
not overcome by the gadgets of modern life, which so often eradicate any
meaningful communications between families. You can tell he is enjoying himself
and at ease with his subjects. Viksraitis’ sitters also seem to enjoy taking off their
clothes. I assume this is helped by the home brew and rather warm temperatures, or
perhaps they are all having frequent sex? Against this backdrop, numerous animals
seem to be part of daily life. They surreally pop up everywhere; they too seem to fit
in effortlessly. They share the family’s domesticity with the greatest of ease. The
resulting images, displayed (or published) here, are slightly insane and wonderfully
surreal. They are quite compelling, and if I spoke Lithuanian I would love to join in
the party. However, as this will never happen, Viksraitis provides us with a ring-side
seat, with all the emotion, the drink and the ensuing madness.”
Martin Parr, November 2008.
“As you drive along the main roads in the country, by the roadsides or out in the
fields you can see farmhouses crowned with storks’ nests, looking as if they had
been hoisted into the tops of towering trees. It is only a short time ago that villagers
used to gather at these farmhouses well before sunrise to sell pails of milk to the
farmers. Among them were always a few old people who managed to help support
their children or grandchildren, then earning a scanty livelihood in the cities, with the
few cents they earned. Now that we have the European Union, these morning
gatherings are a rarity, eliminated by the new laws governing milk production. Today
if you open the farmhouse gate you are most likely to find invalids—nowadays more
and more frequently referred to as the disabled. It is truly poignant to watch them
chopping wood, or to see a timid old woman pushing a wheelbarrow filled with the
harvest of her garden and watching the young people, inquisitive and lively as
lizards, who fill the village with their uproar and clatter. These are the characters in
my photographs: they bear their cross without grumbling about their lot. This is life
on the farm.”
Rimaldas Viksraitis
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Rimaldas Viksraitis: Grimaces of the Weary Village
By Sean O’Hagan
Rimaldas Viksraitis - Farmstead Dreams. 2001
Anya Stonelake / White Space Gallery at John McAslan, London NW1, until 16 Jan
These images of abandonment in depressed rural Lithuania mix reportage and
voyeurism to surreal and disturbing effect.
A farmer bends over a dead pig with a blowtorch, a chicken perched on his back. A
young girl stares out of a window over the decapitated head of a goat. A drunk bites
the ear of another drunk who is biting the ear of a pig's head on a plate. Welcome
to the strange, frightening and darkly humorous world of Rimaldas Viksraitis, a 55year-old photographer who travels through the benighted villages of his native
Lithuania with a camera tied to his bicycle.
In July, Viksraitis won the prestigious Discovery Award at the Arles photography
festival, having been nominated by Martin Parr, who described the work as "slightly
insane and wonderfully surreal". That about captures it. The motifs that recur in
Viksraitis's work are, in no particular order, chickens, vodka, breasts, dirt, animal
carcasses and inebriated, often semi-naked, pensioners. In terms of photographic
reference points, Boris Mikhailov's work springs to mind, though his images of a
bleak post-Soviet netherworld of alcoholism and madness are altogether harsher
and more detached.
The more I looked, the more I was reminded of the early photographs of the
Birmingham-born Richard Billingham, who turned his camera so revealingly and
startlingly on his own dysfunctional family in his book Ray's a Laugh. There is the
same kind of unflinching gaze at work here, and the same kind of intimate
identification with the subject. Interestingly, when I ask Viksraitis to name his prime
influences, he cites "the films of the Fellini", and, in a sense, he has created his own
version of the great director's semi-autobiographical Amarcord in a series of still
images that shock and provoke as much as they intrigue. As his photographs
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suggest, Viksraitis is quite a character. He was born in 1954 in the village of
Sunkariai and contracted tuberculosis as a child. As a result, he is disabled and one
senses that his otherness has helped him create these startling images. There is
something, too, of the imp about him. When I met him at the gallery before his show
opened, I asked why there are so many semi-naked women in his work. He laughed
long and hard and had an animated conversation with his translator, Iena, who told
me mysteriously: "Rimaldas says that he grew up surrounded by women and knows
all their secrets."
Viksraitis graduated in photography from the Vilnius technical school and his
mentor is the great Lithuanian photojournalist Antanas Sutkus. For 10 years he
worked as a commercial photographer, mainly doing wedding portraits, before
receiving a grant from the Lithuanian ministry of culture. He has been photographing
his friends and neighbours since 1971, when he first bought an old Soviet Smena 8
camera for 15 roubles. Grimaces of the Weary Village is the latest in a series of
wonderfully titled visual narratives that began with Slaughter (1982-1986) and
continued with Nude in a Desolate Farm (1991) and This Crazy World (1995).
The social backdrop to these powerful images is the decline of village life since the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the attendant disintegration of the local farming
system. People drink so much, he says, "because they are lost". He shows me
some images of a group of fresh-faced young boys posing in swimming trunks by a
river. "I grew up with these people," he says. "I know them since they were children
but now the farms have fallen down, the work has gone and they have nothing so
they are always drinking. Some of them are in prison from drinking. There is nothing
else to do but they do not complain." He identifies some of the boys, now grown-up
and broken by circumstance, in the photographs on the wall. There is nothing else
to say.
Viksraitis is also, as Parr has pointed out, a storyteller, and a director of his own
narratives. In one disturbing image, a man lies in a drunken sleep beside a young
boy, who stares unfazed at the camera, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Like the
image of the girl and the goat's head, this image occupies that shady hinterland
between staged photography and social reportage. Some viewers may find his
images voyeuristic, but the drunken abandonment and chaos of the villagers is as
telling as the grime and poverty of their living quarters. Many young people have left
these villages in search of work in the cities; those left behind seem unmoored. The
traditional way of life that sustained them has disintegrated like the barns that stand
empty and decaying in the nearby fields.
Revealingly, too, Viksraitis sometimes places himself at the centre of his work. Two
of the more mysterious shots are staged tableaux: in the first, he stands naked, his
back to the camera, balancing a huge metal bucket on his head; in the second,
again naked, he walks in front of a long line of empty bottles. He seems to be
saying, I am just like the people I photograph, even as he displays his physical
difference. The camera, too, of course, makes him different, signals his detachment
from the chaos and disorder around him. He grew up, he says, "between marshes
and clay", and now he is an acute and graphic chronicler of that alluvial world, a
world that seems to be sinking under the weight of its own sadness and despair.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/06/rimaldas-viksraitis-photography-review )
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Observations: The boozed-up Lithuanian peasants who appeal to
Martin Parr
By Jay Merrick
A skinny, middle-aged, man, stripped to the waist, is dropping his trousers. His right
hand rests on the lid of a bin, inches from a strutting chicken. Next to him, his
grinning wife is holding a piglet upside-down. This exceedingly strange image, along
with a surreal, flinch-inducing shot of a man blow-torching the belly of a dead pig in
the snow while a chicken perches patiently on his bent back, helped the Lithuanian
photographer Rimaldas Viksraitis win the 2009 Arles Discovery Award for new
photography.
Martin Parr, Britain's greatest photographer of the super-realities of ostensibly
unremarkable lives and activities, thinks Viksraitis is so special that he selected and
introduced the photographer's work at a show at the new Anya Stonelake/White
Space Gallery in north London.
Viksraitis works in and around bedraggled Lithuanian villages. "In his world," says
Parr, "any apparent dysfunctionality, propelled by liberal drinking of home brew,
appears to be an asset because people seem to be having such a great time. He
goes to the parties, he sits and drinks and talks with his subjects. You can tell he is
enjoying himself and at ease with his subjects. Viksraitis's sitters also seem to enjoy
taking off their clothes. I assume this is helped by the home brew and rather warm
temperatures, or perhaps they are all having frequent sex. He provides us with a
ringside seat, with all the emotion, the drink and the ensuing madness."
Parr likes this kind of photographic truth, and it's significant that he passes no
comment on the crude technical quality. As one gazes at these scenes, the key
Borderliners
16 February – 23 March 2013
realisation sinks in: unlike most of us, these characters do exactly what they feel like
doing, with a fusion of innocence and lurid intent that poses a rather provocative
question. What if we pitched up and got utterly drunk with these unselfconscious
villagers?
Grimaces of the Weary Village, Anya Stonelake/White Space Gallery, 7-9 William
Road, London NW1 to 16th January
( http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/observations-the-boozeduplithuanian-peasants-who-appeal-to-martin-parr-1837715.html?action=Gallery )
Biography of Rimaldas Viksraitis
Graduating from the Vilnius Technical School No 47, specialising in photography,
Viksraitis worked for 10 years as a photographer in Šakiai. Since 1985 he has been
a member of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers.
In 1997 the International Federation of Art Photography (FIAP) conferred on him the
name of Photoartist (AFIAP). In 2000-2001 and 2003-2004 he was granted a
personal State stipendium of the Ministry of Culture of the Lithuanian Republic. In
2009 he won the Arles Discovery Award for New Photography.
Solo Exhibitions
2010 Grimaces of the Weary Village, Caochangdi Photospring, Beijing.
Festival catalogue
Grimaces of the Weary Village, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow. Catalogue
2009 Grimaces of the Weary Village. Recontres d’Arles, France. Festival catalogue
Grimaces of the Weary Village. Anya Stonelake/White Space Gallery, London.
Exhibition leaflet
2008 Farmstead Dreams. Galeria Sztuki Mediow ASP, Warszawa
2007 Farmstead Dreams. Galeria K2, Goldapi, Poland
2006 Farmstead Dreams. Prospekto Gallery, Vilnius
2005 Farmstead Dreams. Photography Gallery, Panevežys, Lithuania
2004 Farmstead Dreams, Michalskky Dvor Gallery, Bratislava/the 14th Festival
Mesiac fotografie. Festival catalogue
Photography Gallery, Taurage, Lithuania
2002 Grimaces of the Weary Village. Art Gallery, Šiauliai, Lithuania
2001 Grimaces of the Weary Village. Photography Gallery, Vilnius
2000 Grimaces of the Weary Village. Photography Gallery, Panevežys, Lithuania
1999 This Crazy World. Region Museum, Rokiškis, Lithuania
1998 This Crazy World. Photography Gallery, Klaipeda, Lithuania
This Crazy World. Fujifilm Photography Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania
This Crazy World. Šakiai, Lithuania
1996 A Meadow at 11.00. Kaunas, Lithuania
1995 Retrospective. Photography gallery, Marijampole, Lithuania
1994 Circles of Love. Photography Gallery, Panevežys, Lithuania
1983 House of Culture, Kudirkos Naumiestis, Lithuania
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Group Exhibitions
2010 Lithuanian Photography: Yesterday and Today. Denmarks Photomuseum,
Herning, Denmark
2005 International Project Kartos / Generations. Gallery Skrydis, Alytus, Lithuania.
Catalogue
Colleagues, Prospekto Gallery, Vilnius
2004 25th Annversary of the Kaunas ‘Fujifilm Photography Gallery: the ULAPh
Kaunas’ Branch jubilee exhibition to commemorate Povilas Karpavicius. Fujifilm
Photography Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania. Catalogue
Art Photography exhibition of 10 countries the new members of the
EU Bitte Lächeln, Aufnahme! Martin-ropius-Bau Exhibition Hall, Berlin. Catalogue
Exhibition of the contemporary Lithuanian Art Omas mahlas/ In My Own Juice. Eesti
Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn. Catalogue
Exhibition of Lithuanian photographers Tree. Photography Gallery, Lvov, Ukraine
2003 International photography exhibition ‘How are You?’ Andrej Sakharov
Museum, Moscow
We and People. Gallery Arka, Vilnius. Catalogue
2002 Decades of the Lithuanian Photography 1945-1990. Contemporary Art
Center, Vilnius
2002 International photography exhibition ‘How are You?’ Jurgis Baltrušaitis’
House, Moscow / The 8th Annual International Moscow Festival of the Professional
Photography InterPhoto 2002
2002 Lithuania Insight: Photography 1960 to Now. Fotografie Forum
Internationaland Kommunale Galleries, Frankfurt on Main, Germany. Catalogue
2001 International photography exhibition How are You? Photography Gallery,
Vilnius. Catalogue
Self-Esteem, Lithuania Art 2001. Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius. Catalogue
1999 Photography exhibition of Lithuanian FIAP photographers. Photography
gallery, Vilnius
A Look at Old Age. Photography Gallery, Vilnius. Catalogue
1998 Woman in Lithuanian Photography. Gallery Arka, Vilnius. Exhibition leaflet
The 2nd Republican exhibition A View of a Man. Photography Gallery, Vilnius.
Catalogue
1985 The 5th Republican exhibition of young photographers. Photography Gallery,
Vilnius. Catalogue
Collections
Lithuanian Art Museum
Union of the Lithuanian Art Photographers, Vilnius
FIAP collection, Lausanne, Switzerland
Archive of Modern Conflict, London, UK
David Knaus, US
Martin Parr, Bristol, UK
Eric Franck Fine Art, London, UK
John McAslan + Partners, London, UK
( http://www.whitespacegallery.co.uk/ )