Body vision

Between the years of 1956-1966, Lithuania saw the emergence of a new photographic generation. Slowly but surely, a wealth of independent, divergent styles were able to flourish once more. The irony present in the work of Aleksandras Macijauskas, whose allegories contain hidden, subversive criticism, the romantic viewpoint of Rimantas Dichavicius, and the surrealism of Vitaly Butyrinas, serve to underline just a few trends. In the 1980s, and riding on the wave of Perestroika, yet another generation came to the force, including Violeta Bubelyte, who constantly questions in her self-portraits the nature of her own literal nakedness, Gintaras Balionis, with his symbolic and metaphoric observation, and Pranas Gudaitis, whose nudes were obviously influenced by classical painting. The work of Virgilis Sonta evokes a strange and apolyptic world. Romualdas Pozerskis, whose models posed for him in the studio of his artist friends, not only relegated the nude to a far less important role, but also managed to accentuate the manifold artistic positions in painting and sculpture. Aurelija Cepulonskaite, the youngest of the photographers presented in this book produces sensitive pictures of young girls. Loving couples form the basis of Rolas Simulis' work; they are tender and seek harmonious relationships. In the work of both photographers, we notice new possibilities of expression, countenanced only by a recently independent Lithuanian state.