THE FIFTH PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

From the 13th of November, 2020, the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers Klaipėda Branch will present the fifth Photography Festival at the Exhibition Hall of Klaipėda Culture Communication Center (KCCC) (Didžioji Vandens st. 2, Klaipėda).

It has already become a tradition that the last two months of the year are dedicated to the art of photography at the KCCC Exhibition Hall. The Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers Klaipėda Branch starts the fifth Photography Festival by presenting exclusive photography exhibitions:  Alexander Chekmenev (Ukraine) “Forgotten Land”, Violeta Bubelytė’s “Mono-Performance Differently” and Arūnas Kulikauskas’ “The Last One”.

It is, admittedly, true that the plans for a long and carefully organized festival were messed up by the Covid-19 pandemic and the quarantine related to it, which restricted the access to exhibition spaces and museums. Therefore, there will be no opening and physical attendance of the first exhibitions of the Photography Festival at this time. However, from the 18th of November, expositions will be available virtually: https://klaipeda360.lt/parodu_turai/5/

Alexander Chekmenev photography exhibition “Forgotten Land”

The exhibition “Forgotten Land” by Alexander Chekmenev, one of the most famous representatives of Ukrainian contemporary photography, organized in Klaipeda, is a sequel of the cooperation between Lithuanian and Ukrainian photographers in recent years. The joint project of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers Klaipėda Branch and the Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography (MOKSOP) presents a small retrospective of A. Chekmenev works. The curator of the exhibition Darius Vaičekauskas and co-curator Sergiy Lebedynskyy set themselves the task of showing that the author’s creative work is more than a post-colonial “chronicle”. It clearly raises questions about the essence of socially engaged documentary, as well as the responsibilities of the photographer and the viewer.

Chekmenev was born in Luhansk, Eastern Ukraine. He currently lives and creates in Kiev. Having started his career as a photographer in a small photo studio in his hometown, he photographed people on the streets and at home during his free time. The intimate and unique, not always publicly visible reality of post-Soviet life, as well as the realities of Donetsk and Luhansk districts’ life are captured in his photographies. The author took a lot of photos in psychiatric hospitals, captured traffic accidents on the streets, daily lives of the homeless, often showing the poverty and absurdity of post-Soviet life. After moving to Kiev and working as a photojournalist, he still continues to document the reconstruction of the war-torn Donbas region.

However, according to a representative of the Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography, art critic Oleksandra Osadcha, ‘Chekmenev does not raise the impeccable task of preserving the era. On the contrary, he is interested in personal, non-anonymous stories. They are presented so tangibly that the screaming marginality of the captured moments cannot be ignored and assessed as given.  Contrasting with this, photographer’s naturalness, as well as the habit of being in an environment of brutality and pain, causes inner chills. <…>

Relentless concreteness, which overthrows the comfortable image of  “dignified poverty” is typical for the works of Chekmenev of the end of the 20th century. Here, what is “foolish and weak to the world“, contrary to the Bible quote, does not become the material of moralization. An unattractive element of life is more likely to have an unpleasant or anecdotal effect that requires no compassion what so ever. The viewer finds himself in a situation of an emotional swing, especially after remembering one of Alexander’s earliest photographs in the Prolisok café – a popular spot where Luhansk intellectuals and bandits used to gather. A smiling skinny lad in short shorts, majestically holding a cigarette in his hand with a drunk man lying on the ground in the background, prancing or empathetically dancing people, a homeless at the signboard ‘Billiard Hall’ – the photographer’s characters are so alive and full of inner freedom that they do not seem to demand sympathy at all,’ says O. Osadcha.

The exhibition features four series of works by Alexander Chekmenev: „Black&White“ (1992-1997); „Lilies“ (1999); „Passport“ (1995) and „Deleted“ (2018–2019). The author is presented in Lithuania for the first time. Most of the photographs for the exhibition were provided by the project partner – the Museum of Kharkiv School of Photography.

Violeta Bubelytė’s photography exhibition „Mono-Performance Differently“

According to art critic Monika Krikštopaitytė, Violeta Bubelytė has been using the two most expressive instruments since 1981: the image and the body. Her creative work could be roughly divided into two parts. Recent years’ works of V. Bubelytė are shown in this exhibition. Most of them were created in 2019 using processed digital photography. They all represent the second stage, which differs from the first one in even greater freedom and playfulness – first of all, because the body is freed from youth, which is burdened with so many responsibilities: to be appealing, to awaken, to excite, to promise. Even at the beginning of her creative work, Bubelytė did not show herself from the „better angle”, but we ourselves, staring at the naked ones for centuries, seem to have acquired an unconscious expectation of beauty, which affected and still affects the nature of viewing.

Although it is very difficult to determine the boundary where the first stage became the second, comparing Bubelytė’s autoacts of the 1980s and the current ones, we can clearly see how serious everything was in youth, how fragile, sensitive and courageous, and how damn fun it is now, so much relaxation, jokes and pranks. The word “exploration” is more appropriate for the first stage and “narrative” – for the second. “Poetry” – for the first one and “prose” – for the second. With her early creative work she replaced the iconography of the portrayal of a naked woman with a tough look at the viewer. During the later creative work she almost forgot the viewer and engaged in more interesting things for herself.

What remains common is that Bubelytė’s presence in front of the camera frees her much more than being near people. She seems to prefer body language, which is why we can admire her almost theatrical eloquence. Both before and now, Bubelytė remains as a unique case, and current photographs tell us about living with oneselves and about the fact that it is not easy to surprise yourself. Along the way, however, one can enjoy the pleasures of paradox and irony. The possibilities for body language here seem limitless.

Arūnas Kulikauskas’ exhibition „The Last One“

Avoiding the pretentious word “retrospective”, Arūnas Kulikauskas’ exhibition “The Last One” should be called a review. The author’s creative work consists of different historical, cultural and expressive layers: from the beginning of the creative work during the Soviet period with a different approach to classical photography and its ways of expression, to the New York period – the capitalistic world megapolis and Anthology Film Archives life poetry created by J. Mekas,  photographic lenses while working with Polaroid photographic material, pinhole photography and camera production, capturing rural everyday life in blog photography (everyday – “now” – capturing) or the slow (e.g., half-year exposure per frame) Sun trail photography.

In the “The Last One” exhibition, A. Kulikauskas reviews his four-decade-long creative work period with an easy look and form. He inventories a rich archive of creative work. But he does not try to scrupulously sort, classify, or chronologize it. Rather, the author carefully examines what he has, what is still left – as if flipping through a family photo album. After finding something what matters, he blows away the dust: here I am little, plump child with bare end, here – young, inexperienced and angry. Here is me, having lived a part of life when I realized something – that precious things are simple, and the basis is always the same.

The three main axes of the “The Last One” exhibition are these: the last works of the Soviet period; a twenty-year long creative work period while living in New York; almost a decade of creation after returning to Lithuania and settling in the countryside – telephotography, blog photography.

There are two important things that should be taken into account when viewing the exhibition. First, the “The Last One” exhibition is unrestricted  and changing: the author will constantly shape and fill up the exposition prepared for the opening. Its final image should be revealed in the last week. The “The Last One” is a changing, growing and developed exhibition.

Second, the „The Last One“ is a contextual exhibition in which the author seeks to show the context of his creative work and life as a single material. The author includes in the exhibition what was important to him at one period or another, what influenced, lived and worked alongside, what was just before the eyes. Therefore, let the viewer not be surprised to see in the exhibition not only creative works of A. Kulikauskas, but also of his companions from the youth, young photography soldiers or his wife; a picture of an unknown author from a second hand shop or even a household utensil.

For the first time, A. Kulikauskas is organizing a large-scale exhibition of his own. Has he managed to cope with such a libertine concept of the exhibition? Arūnas is an old fashioned rebel, or at least a non-conformist, so he really does not care about it. Not to create correctly, “into the change” – what is fashionable, modern, popular, but touch the Unknown – this is one of the essential art criteria for the author.

Curator of Photography Festival’s exhibitions – Darius Vaičekauskas.
Photography Festival’s exhibitions are partially funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture and Klaipėda city municipality administration.
Exhibitions will be open until the 13th of December, 2020.