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Kaunas Photography gallery

Kaunas Photography gallery is situated in the heart of middle-age Kaunas Old Town in the center of Lithuania. It is a modern well-equipped gallery of 200 square meters renovated in 2010. This medium is one of the most important exhibition places in the region dedicated to photography and contemporary art. Gallery has been established and restored to provide an opportunity for national and international audience to realize the connection between photography tradition and new conception projects. This non-profit space presents innovative contemporary undertakings as well as traditional photography exhibitions. Creating this authentic medium for artists, we hope to interact closely with especially talented authors and critics and encourage them to make their expectations extremely real.

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Rotušės sq. 1/Vilniaus st. 2 Kaunas, Lithuania

lfs.galerija [eee] gmail.com
photo [eee] kaunasgallery.lt
kaunasart [eee] gmail.com

Ph/fax (8 37) 321789
Cell. 370 682 23806

Open hours:
II-V - 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
VI-VII - 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Algirdas Musneckis. RECOVERED MEMORY

The photography exhibition 'Recovered Memory' by Algirdas Musneckis will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery (1 Rotušės Sq. / 2 Vilniaus St.) on the 15th of December at 5.30 pm.

According to art critic Virgilijus Kinčinaitis, the collection of found and revived negatives of A. Musneckis is very relevant: "Algirdas is not afraid of a naive amateurish approach. Retreating as an author, destroying himself as an artist, he steps aside for incredibly sincere and dramatic images of family, travel, festive or random photographs. That is how those images became public; that is why they could appeal to us and move us by their tacky simplicity, their proximity of postmodern or conceptual photography.'

The exhibition will be open till the 28th of December.

International glass art project VITRUM BALTICUM V. IMAGE MEMORY

International exhibition of unique glass art and theoretical seminar VITRUM BALTICUM V are held for the fifth time from November 24, 2011 to January 9, 2012.

Place: Kaunas Photography gallery (Rotušės sq. 1 / Vilniaus st. 2)
Opening time: November 24, 2011 6PM

History: first organized in 2000 as a glass exhibition of the Baltic countries, VITRUM BALTICUM has eventually developed into a solid Lithuanian-Baltic-Nordic glass art project which at least partially fills the gap of big glass art exhibitions in these countries and is held every three years. The event helps to understand the changing view of modern art glass, reflects the main tendencies and priorities of today‘s glass art and motivates to assess the position of glass art in the Baltic sea area.

For example, in 2008 VITRUM BALTICUM IV. NEW AND YOUNG project attracted a lot of participants from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland who demonstrated a wide range of techniques, ideas and forms of art glass. The motto of the project - NEW AND YOUNG was directly targetted to the young generation of glass artists and their performance as well as glass art as a relatively new kind of professional art. The event was widely reported in the press, a high-quality catalog of the exhibition was published. The exhibition itself was demonstrated not only in Kaunas city, but also in Klaipėda, Alytus, Kėdainiai, and Telšiai.

A new project: This year exhibition VITRUM BALTICUM V. IMAGE MEMORY is expected to be a solid and massive event as well.

The main aim is to expand limits of the art glass, a distinctive and specific media, by presenting professional glass works in harmony/connection/interaction with art photography. In this way, using glass and photography artists are motivated to share with the audience the inspirations of their creation process (of displayed piece) and the result. It is, therefore, requested that exposed glass object is creatively reflected in art photographs. It is also preferred that photo techniques were used in glass compositions as well.

Why this position is chosen?

It is believed that every piece of art ( with a few rare exceptions) has a story of it’s birth. The main concern an artist should have when working is to have a vision. Later, when a piece of art is already developed, the artist often thinks of another ways how the idea could have been realized. This “journey” of an artwork, from the very first idea to it’s realization, is undoubtedly a long process. In this exhibition we want not only to show the completed work, but also to introduce the shots of the creation process and emphasize on the turns of artist’s thoughts which could have occurred. This intention gave the exhibition a slogan that reflects the desire to trace the images of the path of creation, and record the contemplations of working artists. “Image memory” are suspended visions, moments of creation.

The exhibition will be displayed in Kaunas Photography Gallery and later moved to Klaipėda Culture Communication Center Exhibition Hall.

http://www.stiklomenas.lt/vitrum2011.php

Weekdays of Vilnius and Kaunas by Romualdas Rakauskas

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The exhibition "Weekdays of Vilnius and Kaunas" by photographer, laureate of the National Prize Romualdas Rakauskas will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery (1 Rotušės Sq. / 2 Vilniaus St.) on the 8th of November at 5 pm.

The narrative of the exhibition involves all seasons of the year and different layers of the cities. According to art critic Agnė Narušytė, the story is constructed not by affirmations or literary tropes but by the observation of the urban changes, approaching to the space of wordless understanding, where texts are being written by rythms of figure movements and shadows.

The exhibition will take place till the end of November.

Vladimir Birgus. Photographs

The exhibition "Vladimir Birgus. Photographs" will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery (1 Rotušės Sq. / 2 Vilniaus St.) on the 14th of October at 6 pm.

V. Birgus is the leader of Photography Department at Prague Performing Arts Academy and Artistic Photography Institute at Silesian University in Opava. He has been faithful to documentary photography for three decades already. As many other documentary artists, V. Birgus is searching for motifs in city streets and festivals. He was one of those photographers who did not hide their irony and sarcasm towards the system during the times of Czecho-Slovakia, by unravelling the obvious difference between the facade optimism and destroyed humanity.

The old collection of V. Birgus is supplemented with new photographs from the cycle "Fauna" in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be open till the 30th of October.

Lithuanian Photography gallery announces an application competition for exhibitions in 2012

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Photographers and artists are welcome to submit the applications till October 18, 2011 by email lfs.galerija@gmail.com.

If you need further information don’t hesitate to contact us: lfs.galerija@gmail.com, kaunasart@gmail.com, Ph. (8 37) 321789.

Kaunas Photography gallery
Rotušės sq. 1./Vilniaus st.2, Kaunas, LT-44280
Ph./fax (8 37) 321789
http://kaunasgallery.lt/

The gallery provides premises for the exhibition, but the preparation works (printing, framing, transporting) is the responsibility of the author.

The results will be made and announced on November 15, 2011 by email to all candidates and on Kaunas Photography gallery website http://kaunasgallery.lt/.

Colin Gray. In Sickness and in Health

Opening time: 28 of July, 2011 - 5 PM
Exhibition runs till 22 of August, 2011

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Colin Gray began to take photographs of his parents in the 1960s when he was 5 years old. At Family occasions, holidays and celebrations. Over the next three decades his series of photographs has accumulated into an extensive body of work documenting his parents loving, working, homemaking and playing.

"In Sickness and in Health" forms the final stages of "The Parents" series. Begun in 2000, it shows his parents deterioration and ultimately his mother's death.

The hospital and church visits became more frequent, the ailments more serious, the drugs regime ever more complex. Whilst his father struggled with his new role as a carer, Gray found that his photographs helped make sense of the deterioration and loss he was experiencing. Having reached the age that his parents were when he started the project, Gray now sees their history in his own future.

C. Gray born in Hull in 1956, studied at the Royal College of Art, London and lives and works in Glasgow. He has exhibited worldwide including shows at Kunsthal, Rotterdam; Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal; House of Photography, Sydney; and Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi. He has appeared in numerous publications including "The Photograph as Contemporary Art".

"ZOO” photography exhibition

The photography exhibition “Zoo Photography. Kaunas. Last Soviet Decade” will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery on the 28th of April at 5pm. The exhibition was recently showcased in Vilnius, at the National Gallery of Art.

A kind of underground group of (neo)vanguard photographers gathered in Kaunas in the last decade of the Soviet period. Its core was made of young photographers rallied by A.Kulikauskas: G.Liagas, Gintautas Stulgaitis, Visvaldas Dragūnas, S.Paukštys. Algirdas Šeškus, Alfonsas Budvytis, Vytautas Balčytis in Vilnius and photographers of new creed headed by A.Kulikauskas in Kaunas used photography for constructive activity rather than visual purposes – they modelled their artistic worlds trying to express things that were present in themselves, to identify themselves with an object or to show things in the way the artist knows them to be but not in the way they are seen.

These photographers marked a turn from subjective expression of an artist’s status to conceptual attitude towards an object.

Works of Arūnas Kulikauskas (b. 1959), Gintautas Stulgaitis (1959–2000), Visvaldas Dragūnas (1955–2008), Giedrius Liagas (b. 1967) and Saulius Paukštis (b. 1964) exhibited at the gallery have been collection from authors or their family archives along with Kaunas Branch of the Lithuanian Union of Art Photographers.

Curators of the exhibition: art critic Margarita Matulytė and Ieva Mazūraitė-Novickienė, curator of exhibitions of the National Gallery of Art.

The project of avant-garde poetry and musical improvisations OFF-JAZZ will be presented after the official opening of the exhibition at the gallery. This project will later open Kaunas Jazz Festival. Participants: Edita Niciūtė, Gintautas Bejeris (actors). Texts and music: Raimundas Eimantas (bass guitar).

The exhibition will be open until the 15th of May.

Photography exhibition "East"

The exhibition “East” curated by Anzenberger Gallery (Vienna) will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery on the 22nd of March at 5pm.

The exhibition is formed of photographs of authors from various countries picturing the world of Slovakia, Macedonia, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Albania, Russia, Belarus, China, Georgia, Moldova. These worlds often look fantastic, melancholic, grotesque or even mystical.

The following photographers present their works in the project “East”: Andrej Balko, Ivan Blazhev, Jan Brykczynski, Sinan Cakmak, Davin Ellicson, Bevis Fusha, Christine de Grancy, Daniele Mattioli, Rafal Milach, Fatih Pinar, Janis Pipars, Irina Dana Popa, Agnieszka Rayss, Max Sher, Filip Singer, Igor Starkov and Andrei Liankevich. The latter photographer will participate in the opening of the exhibition and will share his professional and cultural experience.

The exhibition will be open at the gallery until the middle of April.

Photography exhibition: The dialog of the generations

Opening date: 6 PM, 3rd of March, 2011 (Thursday) – 5th of April (Tuesday)
Place: Photography gallery of the name Carl Bulla, St. Petersburg (Nevsky Prospekt 54), Russia
Title: Photography exhibition "The dialog of the generations"
Artists: Romualdas Požerskis, Virgilijus Šonta, Romas Juškelis, Gintaras Česonis, Mindaugas Kavaliauskas, Donatas Stankevičius.

ANZENBERGER gallery presents: Rimaldas Viksraitis & Martin Parr: THE REAL WORLD

An exhibition titled THE REAL WORLD with photographs by MARTIN PARR and RIMALDAS VIKSRAITIS is one of the next major projects of gallerist Regina Maria Anzenberger in March 2011. As a matter of fact it will be of particular public interest, and is furthermore accompanied by a lecture of Martin Parr at the Academy of Arts one day after the gallery opening. The Gallery owner was inspired for this show by this year’s Kaunas photo festival in Lithuania, where both artists were exhibited. The British renowned photographer Parr as well as the Lithuanian photographer Viksraitis will be shown in Vienna for the first time!

Martin Parr’s (born 1952 in Epsom/Surrey/U.K.) work is represented in this exhibition by several photographs of his revolutionary series The Last Resort from the mid-1980s, first published in 1986 becoming an influential photo book with the same title. The seaside resort ‘New Brighton’ and its visitors, on which Parr’s major focus lied during his shift into color documentary, describes the subject matter. People trying to have a good day out at a beach area, the critic Robert Morris once labeled “post-industrial hell hole”. One is confronted with possibly fat, simple, conformist, bored, but also happy people lying in the sun, having their crying babies with them, letting their children eat abnormal colored ice-cream, playing around the streets and seas of litter, etc. – all these meanwhile familiar studies of consumerism and mass culture are taken from Britain’s so far 80ies-reality. The photographer intended them to be comical, touching, lively and vigorous. And now, over 15 years later, they haven’t lost anything of their tremendous effect. Parr, as one of the most successful and popular contemporary photographers and a leading member of the prestigious Magnum agency bridges the divide of art and (social) documentary photography.

With Rimaldas Viksraitis (born 1954 in Sunkariai/Lithuania), who already received international recognition, Anzenberger continues her program of showing high quality Eastern European fine art photography to the Viennese audience. In July 2009 the photographer had won the prestigious Discovery Award at the Arles photography festival, having been nominated by Martin Parr, who characterized his work as "slightly insane and wonderfully surreal". Grimaces of the Weary Village is the name of his black-and-white-photography, taken over the past 30 years, displaying the strange beauty of sparse countryside-life. Examples of what there is to see are, a farmer bending over a dead pig with a blowtorch, a chicken perched on his back, or a young girl staring out of a window over the decapitated head of a goat. Welcome to the strange, frightening and darkly humorous world of Rimaldas Viksraitis, a photographer who travels through the benighted villages of his native Lithuania with a camera tied to his bicycle. The motifs that recur in his work are, in no particular order, vodka, breasts, dirt, animal carcasses and inebriated, often semi-naked pensioners. The photographer is also, as Parr has pointed it out, a storyteller, and a director of his own narratives. He can be classified somewhere between staged photography and social reportage.

The gallery opening (Vernissage) is taking place on Thursday, 24th of March 2011 at 7 pm. Both artists will be present.

Place of issue: Anzenberger Gallery in Zeinlhofergasse 7, 1050 Vienna.
Catalogue „THE REAL WORLD“ published in Lithuanian and English: Euro 35,- (during the exhibition, later or online Euro 40,-)
http://www.anzenbergergallery.com/index.php?90533821551438699907.0000172572484218820904616022011230316&ARTICLE=4410

The lecture by Martin Parr is taking place at the Academy of Arts, Lehargasse 8, 1060 Vienna, 25th of May 2011 at 6 pm

For any requests please contact us at:
regina@anzenberger.com elisabeth.mariel@anzenberger.com
Telefon: +43/1/587 82 51 Fax: +43/1/587 90 07

In cooperation with CANON and the ESHPh – European Society for the History of Photography.

ANZENBERGERGALLERY
Zeinlhofergasse 7
1050 Vienna, Austria.
Tel. 43-1-587 82 51
Fax 43-1-587 90 07
gallery@anzenberger.com
http://www.anzenbergergallery.com

Stasys Povilaitis "Horses"

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Opening date: 15th of February, 2011 (Tuesday) 5 PM – 25 of February, 2011 (Friday)
Place: KAUNAS PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
Title: Photography exhibition "Horses", album "Stasys Povilaitis. Aberrations"
Artist: Stasys Povilaitis

About the author: http://www.photography.lt/en.php/Photographers?id=92

Kaunas Photography gallery present the most famous classics of russian photography

The exhibition of the most famous Russian art photographers “Epoch of Optimism: Soviet Photography of 1920-1939” will be opened at Kaunas Photography Gallery on the 14th of January at 5 p.m.

This exhibition presents three main streams of photography, that were active in Russia after October revolution till the Second World War. One will be able to see the authors of "saloon" photography (Aleksandr Grinberg, Nikolai Andreev, Vasilii Ulitin), Soviet photo reportage (Arkadii Shaichet, Semion Fridland) and "left-wing" photography (Aleksandr Rodcheka, Boris Ignatocich).

The exhibition was prepared by the Russian Union of Art Photographers, Foto-sojuz Agency (Moscow) and Russian State National House.

The exhibition runs till the 10th of February.

Master classes: 27of January, 2010 (Thursday) 5 PM
Place: KAUNAS PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
Title: Russian avant-garde (constructivism)
Lecturer: Ramutė Rachlevičiūtė

Participant and an observer of the history

Kaunas Photography Gallery will present the photography exhibition of the photographer, film director, cameraman and traveller Juozas Kazlauskas as well as the photography album “Juozas Kazlauskas. Photography” published at the initiative of J.Kazlauskas Support and Charity Fund for the author’s 70th anniversary on the 7th of December at 5 p.m.

J. Kazlauskas has left an important trace in Lithuanian culture and has made a big contribution to the photography and cinema treasury of our country. In the exhibition and the album the photographer tells about his wanderings in the North: “Along Northern Roads” (1975), “Lithuanian in Exile”, “Chechnya”, “Chernobyl”, “Lithuania after 1988”, “Countryside on the Crossroads”. The artist also presents extracts from his diary which replenish the visual material of his expeditions. Documentaries “Juozas Kazlauskas. Photography” will be shown during the event.

The exhibition will be open until the 12th of December.

The winners of the first stage

To the next stage of competition for exhibitions in 2011 are going these authors:

Žydrija Janušaitė „Nurimęs protas. Susitikimai“
Virgilio Ferreira „Daily Pilgrims“
Stasys Povilaitis „Tik arkliai“
Projektas „Vitrum Balticum“
Mindaugas Ažušilis „Kontrabanda“
Ignas Maldžiūnas „Fotografijos“
Gediminas Latvis „Oslo minore“

The winner (s) of the second stage will be announced on December, 2010.

Sincerely thank you all for the participation!

Organizer
Union of the Lithuanian art photographers Kaunas branch

THE QUEEN, WARHOL AND ME

November 16th, 2010, The Danish Embassy in Lithuania and Partners in Kaunas Photography gallery (Rotušės sq. 1/ Vilniaus st. 2) present a unique exhibition of silk prints THE QUEEN, WARHOL AND ME.

The exhibition comprises two series of posters, created by the famous artist Andy Warhol.

The Reigning Queens series portraits Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Ntombi Twala of Swaziland, and Queen Margrethe II of Danmark. Last-mentioned portrait based on the photo by the prominent Danish photographer Rogmor Mydtskov.

The H. C. Andersen series was inspired and commissioned by the famous Danish art photographer Evan Frederiksen. It was the last series produced by Andy Warhol.

The series comprises a portrait of H. C. Andersen, based on an official photograph and three prints, derived from Andersen’s own cut-out paper silhouettes: Women around a Tree, Pjerrot with Swans and Buildings, and Miller with Dancing Girl and the Sandman.

The posters were released shortly after Andy Warhol’s death.

Andy WARHOL, real name Andrew Warhola, was born on August 6th, 1928 in Pittsburgh, died in New York on February 27th, 1987.
He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1945-49 and earned a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Pictorial Design. He wanted to be a commercial illustrator.
After graduating Warhol moved to New York. During the 1950’s he received several awards for his illustrations.
A. Warhol was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. In 1961 Warhol made his first pop paintings based on comics and ads, followed by his famous Campbell soup can series. In 1964 his first exhibition with sculpture was held and on that occasion he premiered his new studio “The Factory. It soon became the “place” to be, and it was often referred to in the magazines. Still Warhol himself frequently visited Studio 54, another “It” place at that time. He was a big celebrity, a colourful character, and often it is difficult to distinct his person from the artist. It was Andy Warhol who coined the famous expression: “15 minutes of fame”.

The exhibition runs till November 30, 2010.

Algis Griškevičius "The State of Weightlessness"

Opening date: 22 of October, 2010 (friday) 6 PM – 12 of November, 2010 (Sunday)
Master classes: 22 of October, 2010 (friday) 4 PM
Place: KAUNAS PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
Title: The State of Weightlessness
Artist: Algis GRIŠKEVIČIUS

Algis Griškevičius was born on 1954 in Vilnius. 1980-1985 studied at the Vilnius Institute of Fine Arts. He has participated in exhibitions since 1986. The artist has arranged 49 personal exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad during this period. Besides painting he has worked in the fields of poster art, book illustration, set design, sculpture and photography. His works have been acquired by Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania; M.K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas, Lithuania; Ethnographic Museum of Alytus, Lithuania; Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Cinema Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania; Tretyakov Art Gallery, Moscow, Russia; Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg, Russia; The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (Dodge collection), New Jersey, USA; art collectors in various countries.

Every time I look at Algis’ photographs, a snoot gradually replaces the initial smile on my face, and I get a feeling of a lump in my throat. This sensation somewhat reminds the one when you smell autumn in the air for the first time after summer is over; even though you know that you can’t do anything about it, and that the approaching winter is going to pass too, some quiet sadness still crawls in..
Yes, that’s the way life is. That’s the way we are, too… Characters precisely arranged by someone between odd things and stage sets.
Nature is the sole constant theme in Algis’ photographs. Everything else consists of ciphered narratives of varying complexity, which conceal existential questions.
Sometimes I wonder why these photographs are so successful in hurting me. The answer comes when I look at Algis himself, rather than his images. He is the way his works are. That is, his works are the way he is. An exceptionally sensitive perfectionist with associative thinking, always drifting somewhere between white and black, tragedy and comedy. A collector of metaphors who sees life as a theatre stage.
When I reflect on Algis’ works, I am always reminded of the idea that photography, while being a very simple medium technologically, is the most complex one in terms of developing a personal and recognisable style. Algis’ photographs cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s.

Eglė Deltuvaitė

MARTIN PARR AND LORETA ŠVAIKAUSKIENĖ: THE “LUXURY” PROJECT OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXTILE

The joint project of photographs of Martin Parr and textile of Loreta Švaikauskienė “Luxury” is exhibited at Kaunas Photography Gallery

Kaunas Photography Gallery presented the photography project “Real World” of M.Parr on the 10th of September. In addition of the exposition of the British art photographer, his newest series “Luxury” is presented on a big screen decorated by the stylised luxurious work of the textile artist L.Švaikauskienė – golden frame.

The project of the textile artist and photographer forms a harmonious duet. The golden art object full of allegory of heaven and gardens of pleasures created by the winner of numerous awards in Lithuania and abroad L.Švaikauskienė presents works which may be called a conceptualised impression.

Meanwhile M.Parr creates fiction out of reality in his photographs. Luxury is Parr's epitaph to the age of conspicuous consumption, with candid images of the fabulously wealthy on the international party circuit: champagne-fuelled lunches, horse races, Moscow's Millionaire Fair, the Dubai Art Fair and the Beijing Motor Show, to name a few locales. Both biting and affectionate, this series comprises 35 works created between 2003 and 2009. Documenting the trends, tastes and social mores of the bourgeoisie – diamond encrusted jewellery, pure breed puppies, racecars, endless canapes and empty champagne bottles – Parr succeeds in capturing the cliche-laden tedium of excess, while making the whole scene seem a little more human.

"The series of M.Parr is a wonderful souvenir before the explosion of the bubble of our era,” one of the most famous art critics of Britain Neal Brown wrote about the British photographer M.Parr’s works.

The concept of exhibition in exhibition is created at Kaunas Photography Gallery for the first time. The project of L.Švaikauskienė and M.Parr as well as the photographer’s exhibition may be seen at the gallery until the 15th of October.

Lithuanian Photography gallery announces an application competition for exhibitions in 2011

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ENTRY FORM

Photographers and artists are welcome to submit the applications till September 15, 2010 by email lfs.galerija@gmail.com.

If you need further information don’t hesitate to contact us: lfs.galerija@gmail.com, kaunasart@gmail.com, Ph. (8 37) 321789.

Kaunas Photography gallery
Rotušės sq. 1./Vilniaus st.2, Kaunas, LT-44280
Ph./fax (8 37) 321789
http://kaunasgallery.lt/

The gallery provides premises for the exhibition, but the preparation works (printing, framing, transporting) is the responsibility of the author.

The results will be made and announced on November 15, 2010 by email to all candidates and on Kaunas Photography gallery website http://kaunasgallery.lt/.

Kaunas Photography gallery presents the Real World by Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis

Together, Lithuanian photographer Rimaldas Vikšraitis and British photographer Martin Parr, present the photographic project the Real World.

The first collision of these two photographers took place in 2009, in the European photography festival "Rencontres d'Arles." Here, R. Vikšraitis nominated by famous British photographer Martin Parr won "Discovery of the Year" award. M. Parr started his international career as a photographer exhibiting in Arles at 1986. Some more specific links between two photographers can be recognized. Both authors are open to the world around them and are ready to show our tragicomical sides of life. Only one of them discovers them in globalized world, the other - in a small provincial town.

As in photographs of M. Parr either in photo stories of R. Vikšraitis can be seen shocking extremes of the grotesque, the manifestation of strange forms which they choose, symbols and unusual perspectives. All of these elements responds the basic power of artists and a message which they sent to encode to the viewers - a reflection of real life.

For transferring this item, photographer M. Parr uses his artillery: criticism, humor and temptations. Consequently, the British artist's pictures are original, playful and easily readable. However, despite the simple expression, the author penetrates into the deeper layers of existence by showing how we actually live, how we present ourselves to society and what we appreciate the most. Leisure, consumption and communication are the concepts that this British photographer has been researching for several decades now on his worldwide travels. In the process, he examines national characteristics and international phenomena to find out how valid they are as symbols that will help future generations to understand our cultural peculiarities.

Meanwhile, R. Vikšraitis in his photo lines documenting a close relationship with the fixed reality, and allegedly shooting an objective look at the people are not soften up (unsure what 'are not soften up' and 'in his photo lines' means), that’s why his works can not be equated to the tradition of Lithuanian photography either with the prevailing trends of contemporary photography.

The meeting of these photographers' in our country is one of the most significant event not only in the local city context, but also in the history of Lithuanian photography. City residents and visitors will have a unique opportunity to get to know M. Parr and R. Vikšraitis creative personalities and to find in their photographs close connections and differences of social life.

The exhibition opens on September 10th. The Lithuanian Architects' Union gallery (Vilniaus st. 22), hosting R. Vikšraitis' part of the show opens at 5.00pm and shortly after the Kaunas Photo Gallery (City Hall sq. 1 / Vilniaus st. 2) where M.Parr's photographs are to be exhibited will open at 5.30pm. The exhibitions continue till October 15th, 2010.

Arturas VALIAUGA - photoproject BETWEEN THE SHORES

Date: 13 th of August , 2010 (friday) - 4 th of September , 2010 (saturday)

Place: KAUNAS PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY

Title: photoproject BETWEEN THE SHORES

Artist: Arturas VALIAUGA

Exhbited: Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg, 2008
Andrejsala, Riga, Latvia, 2008
Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst e.V. (NGBK), Berlin, Germany, 2008
Stadtgalerie Kiel, Kiel, Germany, 2007
Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland, 2007
KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, 2007
“Laznia”, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland, 2008
International art photography festival “In Focus”, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2008

Three hundred eighty-six thousand square meters, twenty one thousand cubic kilometres of water and eight thousand kilometres of the coast are called the Baltic Sea. The populations of western coastal areas used to call it the East Sea, and we still see the other coast as the Western world, the promise of hope. For us the sea means the direction to the West, for them, to the East.
While on the coast, one always turns towards the sea.
While at sea, one is constantly thinking about the coast… To go to the sea always means to leave something, but as you gaze at the immense expanse of water you involuntarily think of return. Where to? What for? Who for? The struggle with your self is greater than the struggle with the elements.The sea always keeps a particle of ourself to itself as it overtakes us with the unavoidable marine solitude. I would like to believe that water gets colder as we go on further away from the coast to make the solitude easier…
The feeling of solitude coded and imprisoned Between the Shores, while walking on the deck of the ferry, to the captain’s bridge, to cabins, to the caboose, the hold and often going ashore at seaports. And the sea is inseparable from that solitude, the synthesis of the symbols of life and death.
The fair wind depends on where you are and where you are going…
Whatever it takes let the wind be fair!
Eglė Deltuvaitė

About the project: http://www.arsbalticatriennial.org/4th/artists/arturas-valiauga

A. Valiaugas’ CV: http://www.arsbalticatriennial.org/files/CV_ArturasValiauga.pdf

The 3rd Contemporary Art Festival - Kaunas In Art: Opening

Date: ACT TWO 9-31 th of July , 2010 (friday).

Place: KAUNAS PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY

Title: TRANSIENT SPACES: THE TOURIST SYNDROME

Curators: Marina Sorbello (DE/IT), Antje Weitzel (DE)

Artists:

Isa Andreu (ES/DE), Johanna Bruckner (AT/DE) and Timothy Moore (AU/DE) Looking For Darius, performance, installation, 2009.

Bettina Hutschek (DE), Bucharest, performance, video, 2010.

Eléonore de Montesquiou (FR/DE), On The Border, video installation, 2009.

Joanne Richardson (RO/DE) and David Rych (AT/DE), Red Tour, video, 2010.

Romana Schmalisch (DE), Wytjas, video, 2010.

Where?

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