Something happened to photography in the early 1980s. Images lost their clear and emotional narrative, their lyrical and metaphorical notes, the presence of the “eternal man”, and were soon replaced by inexpressive, boring contrivances, ordinary passersby with empty expressions, and other banalities. The works of newly emerging photographers were small in format and appeared insubstantial and amateurish, reeking of passivity and boredom.

 

Algirdas Šeškus was the first young artist to disturb the peace enjoyed by the Lithuanian Photography Association by submitting photographs to the Arts Council that looked very much like the failed experiments of an amateur. The Arts Council deliberated for two days, not knowing what to make of the dark, unconstrasted photographs with no perceptible content. More and more “amateurish” photographs began to apper.

 

The 1980s generation seemed to fracture the stable monolith of Lithuanian photography, developed over twenty years, into a core and its fringes. The core remained the domain of the older generation of Lithuanian School of Photography (LSP) artists and their younger followers who continued to create reportage works in a humanistic spirit. On the periphery, however, new creative personalities began to emerge, shaking the foundations laid by the LSP photographers and finding the courage to experiment and test the limits of photographic imagery. 

 

The LSP followers included Romualdas Požerskis, Virgilijus Šonta, Sigitas Šimkus, Algimantas Bareišis, Romas Juškelis, Vytautas V. Stanionis, among others. The ranks of the rebels, meanwhile, included such names as Algirdas Šeškus, Vytautas Balčytis, Alfonsas Budvytis, Remigijus Pačėsa, Remigijus Treigys, Gintautas Trimakas, Arūnas Kulikauskas, Gediminas Urbonas, Saulius Paukštys, Algimantas Maldutis, Alvydas Lukys, Gintaras Zinkevičius, and even two women—Violeta Bubelytė and Snieguolė Michelkevičiūtė. Officially, the same postulates of Soviet ideology remained in force, but beneath the Association’s influential umbrella one could also relatively safely create photography that failed to adhere to those principles.

 

The dilemma of photography’s regression emerged in the 1980s. The young generation of rebellious photographers was accused of dilettantism, flippancy, ignorance, and blindly following styles and fashions. In truth, however, these young artists appeared at a time when humanistic ideals, long the driving force behind the Lithuanian School of Photography, and creative principles themselves were beginning to show signs of decline. Tensions were increasing between the Association and government agencies. Cultural policy administrators had no idea what to make of the works of the younger photographers. As they looked a images of empty, dismal streets, fences, advertising pillars, everyday urban scenes obscured in a thick fog, old and dilapidated furniture, decrepit vestiges of domestic life, telephone booths, carbonated water machines, and expressionless faces of gray and dreary people, they feared that such photography “could provoke a terrible phenomenon—signs of a social spiritual crisis that completely contradicted plans for the representation of Soviet reality.” Margarita Matulytė, Nihil obstat: Lietuvos fotografija sovietmečiu, Vilnius: Vilniaus dailės akademijos leidykla, 2011, p. 62.

 

As a result, the Association had to “reeducate” its younger artists, guiding them back onto the track of correct photography:

 

 

There was considerable debate within the Association. Požerskis attempted to pacify the traditionalists. “Photography has seen the birth of a new movement, new outlooks, plastic solutions,” he said, encouraging those in positions of influence “not to be afraid of letting in new energy. Margarita Matulytė, Nihil obstat: Lietuvos fotografija sovietmečiu, Vilnius: Vilniaus dailės akademijos leidykla, 2011, p. 90. The more plastic photography becomes, the stronger it will be.” Initially, the influential journal Sovetskoye foto tried to ignore the changes taking place in Lithuanian photography. But over time it too had to recognize the necessity of including younger artists, since the Lithuanian School of Photography had been stirring in its own creative juices for some time. With the founding of the Sąjūdis Lithuanian reform movement in 1988, tensions between traditionalists and dissenters began to subside. Gradually, previously “dubious” artists were included in exhibitions and were even given stipends and intership opportunties abroad. On the other hand, their photography was never fully understood or appreciated. Not a single Lithuanian conceptualist was sent to the important Fotomost (Photo Bridge) exhibition in Moscow, which showcased the works of all of the most important neo-avantgarde photographers from the Eastern Bloc (including Boris Mikhailov, Igor Mukhin, and Vladislav Yefimov). This demonstrates that the Lithuanian Photography Association made every effort to associate the image of Lithuanian photography abroad with the traditions of the LSP. This was a clear sign that the Association was indeed living through a period of conceptual stagnation.

 

The realm explored by the new generation of photographers appeared to have remained the same: reality. And yet, each of them understood reality differently and found their own unique style. What was initially considered to be amateurish was, in fact, a deliberate challenge to the rules of photography in search of a means to express conceptual ideas. The first to question these “rules of photography” was Vitas Luckus, one of the founding member of the LSP and a controversial personality who was relegated to obscurity for a time after his dramatic death. In recent years, as a result of a large solo exhibition of his work and the publication of a corresponding catalogue (both curated and organized by Margarita Matulytė), and the release of a documentary film titled Meistras ir Tatjana (The Master and Tatyana, directed by Giedrė Žickytė), Luckus has been recognized as one of Lithuania’s most interesting and brilliant photographers whose ideas were several decades ahead of their own time. Luckus began to create photomontages and photocollages using reality as but one of his materials. In crafting human portraits, Luckus prioritized the conceptual origins of an image over the revelation of the “eternal man” favored by his generation. For example, in his series Portretas stambiu planu (Close-up Portrait, 1969), we see “cropped” faces forced into square frames. Clearly, Luckus was not so much concerned with portraying his subjects’ individuality, but rather the material and texture of their faces themselves, furrowed by time. Luckus’ conceptual approach to human subjects is also evidenced in the series Baltame fone (Against a White Background, 1986–1987), capturing village residents and merchants with their trademark accessories, dressed in everyday clothing. The white background seemed to “extract” his subjects from their surroundings, revealing and highlighting their characters. This artistic tactic was used several decades later by Ramunė Pigagaitė, Darius Žiūra, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Tadas Šarūnas, and others. It can be said, then, that Luckus was the ideational father of the rebel generation of the 1980s.

 

Kunčius also pondered the actual target of his photography: was he capturing objects or his own thoughts about those objects? This is particularly evident in his series Reminiscencijos (Reminiscences, (1976–1985), in which he explored details linked by subjective ties known only to the artist himself. His creative strategy adhered to the canons of visual expressivity and professionalism that characterized artistic photography of the time, but the questions he raised suggest that photographers were already concerning themselves with the origins of photography and reality’s relativism. Luckus and Kunčius, both members of photography’s senior generation, grasped (in part) the guiding principle of conceptual photography, namely that there was no reality in a photograph. Rather, the imprint was the final reality of the photograph.

 

What, then, are the characteristic traits of conceptual photography? According to researcher Narušytė, everything is defined by opposites: contrast is replaced by abstract toning; views from a distance are used instead of close-up perspectives; static versus dramatic imagery; a sense of diffusion and boredom over visual opulence; minimalism over technical quality; imperfection over well-conceived composition; and randomness, with “truncated” objects exceeding the limits of a frame. Values change radically: from the expression of an artist’s subjective state of being to a conceptual perspective of an object. Denaturalization, devisualization, depsychologization, deidealization. The prevailing genre was the social landscape, a term borrowed from the American photographer Lee Friedlander and expanded upon in Narušytė’s book Nuobodulio estetika Lietuvos fotografijoje (The Aesthetics of Boredom in Lithuanian Photography), denoting the impartial and anonymous role of the photographer.

 

Šeškus had a critical view of the traditional representation of reality, which is why he deliberately undermined the established order by overexposing his photographs, purposely avoiding any composition of content, relying instead on randomness. Šeškus made no effort to reflect reality in any artistic way—on the contrary, he photographed as if he had no concern for it, without giving it any significance whatsoever. Šeškus adhered to the principle that, in general, images were irrelevant to photography. This rather indifferent, perfunctory approach is able to uncover more than could be envisaged. It extracts the essence of an image’s meaning and conveys it to the viewer through feeling and sensation.

 

Balčytis photographed the traces of a decaying culture: transformer stations, kiosks, residential neighborhoods, commemorative plaques, empty advertising posts, small warehouses, etc. According to Andriuškevičius, the artist dispassionately transforms the lowest form of chaos (a decaying culture) into the universe (artistic structure) through a photograph. Through the artefacts of decaying Soviet culture, Balčytis conveys an indifference that, in some instances, develops into irony. In the photograph Vilnius, from the series Fotografijos (Photographs, 1986), we see a Soviet cinema house with the Russian name “Happiness” (Счастье), an ironic commentary on the relationship between Soviet life as it was and the absurdity of the proclaimed perfection of Soviet reality. Another similar work shows a “Žiburėlis” television set, a symbol of Soviet prosperity. The screen broadcasting images of an ideologically saturated world becomes a new “source of spiritual light.” The defining characteristic of Balčytis’ work was the aging of his images with a brownish tone. By doing so, the photographer created a sense of tediousness and nostalgia. Balčytis experimented with various means to achieve his desired level of imperfection: by exposing images with tea leaves and vinegar, for example. Boredom also resonated through the uninteresting, monotonous, and standardized names given to his photographs and photographic series.

 

Budvytis’ relationship with reality was a unique one. He was not satisfied with the imagery that reality presented to him, and instead was constantly searching for ways to change what he saw in his photographs, perfecting the images with subtle compositions of framing, toning, and the highlighting of certain details. His photographs reveal a subjective version of reality. Budvytis broke with many canons governing the depiction of landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. In one photograph, Žuvys. Babtai (Fish. Babtai, 1983), we see a “centaur” that merges landscape with still life: dead herring fish seem to echo the lines and mood of the background landscape. Budvytis liked to depict fragments of an object, capturing only a forehead, for example, or a shoulder, neck, or feet, seeking to change the established ways of seeing. In this way, body parts sometimes become expressive visual metaphors. In Galva (Head, 1984), for example, we see the crown of a man’s shaved head, without any identifying facial features, at the juncture of two walls. The image of the expressive, round outline of the skull is somewhat discomforting and disconcerting, stuck as it is in the corner—literally and figuratively. The lack of individuality makes the image universal.

 

Budvytis’ 1980 diptych Vyras (Man) and Moteris (Woman), dedicated to American photographer Ralph Gibson, whose works intrigued Budvytis, was a conceptual exploration of Soviet-era masculine and feminine imagery. One photograph shows the waist of a man dressed in a suit and the other depicts a woman’s breasts concealed under a slip. One way to look at this work is from a feminist perspective—as a stereotypical depiction of a man, representing a position of power, and an obedient, frail woman. But if we examine the woman’s mass-produced, synthetic slip—an article of clothing worn by every Soviet woman—we get the sense that this diptych actually speaks to the depersonalization of men and women in the standardized world of the Soviet era and a coldness which left no room for eroticism. Interestingly, this diptych is also a family self-portrait: Budvytis photographed himself with his first wife.

 

Budvytis was even able to use a conceptual approach with commissioned work. In 1984, for example, he photographed the portraits of road workers completing a highway near Molėtai, but added his own parody on the subject of “heroic laborers”:

 

 

In many of his photographs, Budvytis explored the items used by his subjects—things that sometimes were even more vividly descriptive of their owner’s habits, social status and psychological state, as in Kojakelnės. Šiauliai (Pantleg. Šiauliai, 1979). Some of his photographs have elements of surrealism and symbolism (as in Atsiminimai. Vilnius [Memoirs. Vilnius], 1980).

 

Minimalist photographer Alvydas Lukys radically shifted his focus away from human subjects to the objects they used. Lukys explored these objects from the perspective of the still life genre in art, namely by considering composition and lighting and ensuring that the photographed image had a “painterly” appearance. Lukys was intrigued by the objects of a decaying culture, by discarded things or remnants tossed up on the seashore. In other words, he was drawn to objects that spoke of a past time, containing within themselves a memory of a particular moment. For this reason, art historian Milda Žvirblytė gave the name culture morte to Lukys’ photographs. Lukys was influenced by the work of Czech photographer Josef Sudek, who took exceptional still lifes, and by American artist Irving Penn. He also had a great affinity for the work of painter and graphic artist Algimantas Švėgžda.

 

Remigijus Treigys took a similar path in his work, focusing his eye on objects and the surroundings, traces, and symbols of human life and activity. In his photography, any object (an old table, a crumbling wall, a lumpy sofa) became an instrument for perceiving and reflecting upon existence. Treigys’ landscapes are nearly empty, with faint houses and yards and streets appearing like fragments of another world or the shards of memories. In pursuit of this effect, Treigys deliberately scratched his negatives, leaving behind various “scraps” accumulated during the technical process. Treigys himself admits:

 

 

Alongside an attention to everyday details, Remigijus Pačėsa’s photographs also reveal an acerbic humor and irony. In Parėjau (I’m Home, 1982), for example, a jacket tossed onto a sofa extends a narrow sleeve and flapping lapels like some withered “macho” man, still trying to salvage his splendor. Agnė Narušytė, „Žiogo šešėliai“, 7 meno dienos, 2015-05-08. Or a rubbish container, solemnly standing against a postcard landscape in the Lithuanian seaside resort of Nida, appears like some significant monument (Nida, 1984). One of Pačėsa’s most interesting photographs is Be pavadinimo (Untitled, 1992), capturing a carbonated water machine—a symbol of daily Soviet life. A real razor blade is attached to the photograph, explained in a caption: “This razor is attached to this photo because the chain is attached to the [drinking] glass.” This absurd explanation makes us smile. With the caption, Pačėsa reveals the absurdity and artificiality of the relationship between objects and different realities. The name of the manufacturer of the razor, “Baltika”, suggests a subtext of political criticism, enabling the viewer to consider whether it’s not just the drinking glass that is attached to a chain. Perhaps man under the Soviet regime is equally shackled and captive.

 

Violeta Bubelytė aimed her lens at herself rather than any particular object. Though her nude self-portraits were the object of severe criticism and comparisons with pornography when they were first made public, they contain no eroticism at all. Instead, Bubelytė was studying her own changing body as photographic material and a component in the portrayal of light, planes, and depth. Her works nevertheless give us a sense of the body’s frailty, and a coldness lingering in the images conveys a feeling of alienation. Snieguolė Michelkevičiūtė was the first to challenge stereotypical images of men by experimenting with photography of nude male subjects. Her series Moteris apie vyrus (A Woman On Men, 1977–1995) reveals the drama of masculinity by showing its hidden side, steeped in existential reflection, loneliness, and suffering, and by searching for aesthetic beauty in the body’s imperfections. Why did men agree to undress for this particular photographer? Photo studios in the Soviet era did not shoot nude images, so men who wanted to immortalize their masculinity were often referred by studio employees to Michelkevičiūtė.