Violeta Bubelyte (*1956) and Remigijus Treigys (*1961) are amongst the most prominent photographers of their generation in Lithuania. But never before have both artists been presented jointly at any thematic exhibition outside this gallery. Their subjects and artistic positions seem to be too far apart.
Violeta Bubelyte who is no stranger to the German public by now has been producing exclusively photographs of her own naked body since the beginning of the 80s.
Remigijus Treigys‚ work is really never about man. His still lives and arrangements of objects found in space as well as his empty landscapes and architectures could be called nature morte in a wider sense. The photographer transforms them into lifeless, timeless stills. He is mainly interested in phenomena of light and the effect they have on the objects as well as in the possibilities of chemical and mechanical manipulation during development and enlargement of his photographic material.
This should be taken into account while looking at Treigys‚ now exhibited series of nudes. Apart from an earlier work that consisted of three pieces and depicted a wrapped figure, this is the artist‚s second work that contains a human being, or even a living creature. Still, here, too, the photographer has looked at his nude model as if it was an object. If it is possible at all to discern here something of a familiar view of traditional nude photography, this sensuality of the naked body is due to the texture of the surface and the distribution of light on it, not to sexual appeal.
Namely in this there is a certain proximity to Violeta Bubelyte's work. Although with quite different motivation and point of view she, too, examines the
body not according to primarily physiological patterns of conventional nude photography. In her latest works, mainly multiple exposures, Bubelyte explores questions of form even more strongly. Her soft corporeality seems restraint and abstract and even less attainable than her earlier clear-cut, well-lit self-portraits.
Thus the two series stand apart from the context of East European body photography: outside both traditional nudes that used to exploit the female sex-appeal and recently discovered conceptual body art with its proximity to gender studies.
IMAGE:
Remigijus Treigys
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