"The phenomenon of the Lithuanian school.
ARTinvestment.RU   16 сентября 2010

Today in the center of the photo name Lumière opens exhibition of works of the classics of Lithuania Antanas Sutkus school pictures, Aleksandras Macijauskas and Vitaly Butyrin

Today, 16 September, the center of the photo the name of the Lumiere brothers opened the exhibition "The phenomenon of the Lithuanian school. Western Photography in the USSR. " She continues to series of exhibitions devoted to photography of the Soviet era's thaw and the next decades . Speaking about the history of Soviet photography, it is impossible to ignore the Lithuanian school, which had a fundamental influence on the development of photography in the USSR.

In 2009, a small retrospective Aleksandras Macijauskas Gallery behalf of the Lumiere brothers opened a project" Classics of the Lithuanian photos ». As a continuation and complement this theme throughout the year preparing for the exhibition "The Phenomenon of the Lithuanian school. Western Photography in the USSR. " This exhibition brought together more than 250 iconic works of the three classics of Lithuanian photography - Antanas Antanas Sutkus , Aleksandras Macijauskas, Vitaly Butyrina - Participants legendary exhibition at the Moscow Central House of Journalists in 1969, after the first time in the magazine "Soviet Photo" new term "Lithuanian School».

Exhibition "9 Lithuanian photographers' bombshell. Suddenly discovered that on Soviet soil proizros outlandish supernatural fruit. On the general background of Soviet photography Lithuanian authors separated a kind of national aesthetics, a special artistic language with sharp angles, close-ups, deformities, stiff graphically. Paintings of rural life and urban scenes, taken as a rule, wide-angle lens in a sharp angle, were very unlike reports of other photographers. Colleagues simply staggering that feeling of freedom with which Lithuanian masters came to the choice of themes and artistic techniques.

Against the backdrop of a fairly standard portrait drummers manufacturing, construction cranes and harvesters in wheat fields portraits unshaven rural peasants and sad pioneers Sutkus, naturalistic scenes brisk market trading Macijauskas, much more metaphysical montages with nude Butyrina allocated its nereprodutsiruemoy European, that in general it is not surprising: the Lithuanians have always considered themselves part of Europe and forge a national vision of peace in the photos, based on experience of European reportage, art of the early twentieth century.

leader of the Lithuanian school Antanas Sutkus recalled: "On the one hand, we wanted to show that we are not the Soviet Union. And on the other, for us the main was not a "national idea". The main concern was still to show a person, our own, the common man. You know, when it was fashionable not to shoot the poor, badly dressed people. This was considered pessimistic. Psychologism also evaluated as pessimistic ».

Soviet photographers perceived Lithuanian colleagues on non-conformism, but at the same time envied them. Lithuania called "photographic republic" because there was less censorship than in other Soviet republics, and thaw lasted longer. Forty years ago only allowed the Lithuanians to create a Union of Photographers, photographers were able to earn money by official orders to publish your albums and catalogs, they will have their own gallery, museum. But the main thing - they could send their works to international exhibitions, which allowed the Lithuanians to become part of the world of the photographic process is already in those years: Macijauskas in 1978 participated in the exhibition "18 European photographers in Brussels, and next year his work was presented at the exhibition "Modern European Photography" in Venice; Butyrin in 1975 took part in the «I Triennale" in Fribourg, Switzerland; work Sutkus shown in London at the exhibition "4 Lithuanian photographer" in 1974.

Lithuanian photographers then were trendsetters in the art photography world. Their work were equal. In 1970 all the first prizes at international exhibitions held Lithuanians. That photo-Lithuanian changed the prevailing photographic thinking: from single shots to clear the selected plot-important element of the frame, they moved to the multifaceted compositions for topical series and cycles.

preparing this project, organizers have collected the best works of the famous series of three major legislative Lithuanian school.

Serie life Antanas Sutkus "People of Lithuania", presented at exhibition covers two main themes of his work - portraits of contemporaries, mostly simple rural people and scenes of everyday life. His portraits and reportage, genre pictures - a kind of parable. Documentary, backed by a highly technical, acute vision and a superb sense of timing make his shots spiritual fotoletopisyu era.

Famous series Matsiyaskusa - "Demos", "Lithuanian village markets "and" Veterinary Clinic "- which will be first shown in a full, a revolution in the minds of a generation of those days photographers. Wide angle "Roussarie, in the hands of Macijauskas has become a new visual tool to expand the view of the inner world and life around, suddenly turned into the most popular and scarce photographic lens.

first time in many years, the Centre photos behalf of the Lumiere brothers, who owned Stock Vitaly Butyrina - one of the most famous photographers of Lithuania, which Russia knows, perhaps, worse than the other masters of the Lithuanian school, will show at the exhibition a large collection of works by photographer. Master Photoshop, Butyrin tried probably all the methods of chemical transformation of the image by creating visual metaphors. The uniqueness of the creative method Butyrina identified uniqueness of his archive. Each of his photography is exceptional and unique, since it is impossible to reproduce because of unusual techniques authoring printing. For this project we have selected works, representing all major series Butyrina: "Military Diary" (1967-1968), "Form" (1969), "The Tale forest at night" (1972), "Tales of the Sea" (1976), Terra Incognita ( 1974-1976). "Birth" (1976), "Memories of Childhood" (1983), SOS (1983), "Titans" (1983), "Civilization" (1983). As a true mifotvorets, Butyrin not too shares the fictional world and the real world of human experience and reflection, so his work is often compared with the works of Salvador Dali, Hieronymus Bosch, collages of the Constructivists and Surrealists. Butyrin created his photographic paintings, reminiscent of the fantastic dreams of hundreds of thousands of fragments of reality.

Creativity three recognized photographers in the exhibition, one common theme - Lithuania and its people, but each They found his special vision, and expressed it in a recognizable author's style. Sutkus - master of the psychological portrait, Macijauskas - a revolutionary form, impartial ethnographer, combining reportage in his famous series of documentary photography and avant-garde techniques Butyrin - pioneer "fotofantastiki", "boldly gone over the traditional boundaries of photography, as reported by the magazine" Soviet Photo "in 1978 year.

course, the Lithuanian School of Photography is one of the strongest and most interesting in the world, has a unique handwriting, which distinguishes it in kind of a phenomenon of global importance. And today, when the world's growing interest in Soviet photography 1960-80-ies, the Lithuanian classic first turn in the spotlight.

Since 2000, the work of Antanas Sutkus, Aleksandras Macijauskas, Vitaly Butyrina were exhibited in the National Library of the U.S. (National Library, New York), State Historical Museum of Sweden (State History Museum, Stockholm), the Forum of Contemporary Photography (Forum fur Zeitgenosische Fotografie, Cologne), Festival "Baltic lens» (Das Baltische Fotolinse, Bern), the Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe (Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Fine Arts, USA).

exhibition will run until November 7, 2010.

Source : Press Release Center of Photography to them. Lumière