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Rimaldas Vikšraitis has a particular place on the stage of Lithuanian pictures. His works can’t be attributed neither to the traditions of Lithuanian pictures nor to the dominant developments of recent pictures. Staying aside from the established developments of pictures, the writer conveys practical and concurrently extraordinarily particular person photographs of modern-day Lithuanian countryside important not solely in a slim context of pictures artwork but additionally in a normal cultural and social context of in the present day.
By way of his works, the photographer tells about folks’s lives in Lithuanian countryside, recording of which has long-time traditions in Lithuanian pictures. Ethnographic matters rooted within the works of Lithuanian artists already within the interwar interval and have acquired a brand new inventive high quality when merging with the developments of humanistic pictures within the Sixties. But the long-time traditions serve for Vikšraitis as a starting-point fairly than the rules of his artistic street. The traits that outlined the individuality of Lithuanian pictures college for a very long time will not be typical of his works. The photographer doesn’t create psychological portraits and doesn’t file a pure move of rural life. The folks he pictures consciously stage essentially the most grotesque conditions of their on a regular basis life expressly for the digicam. Furthermore, such performances will not be coated by an “inventive” visible type in Vikšraitis’ pictures.
A seemingly goal take a look at the folks being photographed, which is typical of recent pictures artists, doesn’t soften the relation with the recorded actuality within the Lithuanian writer’s works both. Vikšraitis just isn’t solely a distanced observer (the standard typically recognized with trendy artists) but additionally a participator within the conditions being shot. He data the agricultural neighborhood which he is part of in his pictures and the stance inaccessible for outsiders distinguishes Rimaldas Vikšraitis from different photographers. Though there’s loads of irony within the writer’s works, they provide a risk to empathize with the truth of the countryside experiencing decline fairly than decide the individuals who dwell there.
With out hiding behind an expressive type of inventive pictures or the chilly conceptuality of recent pictures, Vikšraitis paperwork the roles, which have little hint of human dignity, carried out in his presence brazenly. The proof that almost all of people that posed for the photographer inadequately understand their private scenario overwhelms essentially the most. Regardless that pictures has already inured us to numerous photographs of struggling individuals who voluntarily stage the efficiency of their very own decline in entrance of the digicam, the images are nonetheless surprising. They not solely highlight social points but additionally make us rethink the important classes of humanity.
A honest language of Rimaldas Vikšraitis’ pictures appears to be comprehensible and related not solely to Lithuanian spectator. Whereas recording an area manner of rural life, the Lithuanian writer created pictures that acquired a world recognition within the main European Images Competition Rencontres d’Arles in 2009. Right here Vikšraitis received the Discovery Award, for which his works have been nominated by the well-known British photographer Martin Parr. Each authors are open to the encompassing world and are prepared to point out tragicomic facets of our life; the distinction is that one artist discovers them in a globalized world, whereas the opposite does in a small provincial village. —Tomas Pabedinskas
Curated by Gintaras Česonis, Rimaldas Vikšraitis’ exhibition On the Fringe of the Recognized World is on view at Blue Sky Gallery.
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