Greetings from the 20th Century
This exhibition by a world-famous photography maestro Antanas Sutkus (b. 1939) stands out for the abundance of never before shown photographs as well as the new ones. In addition to the works that are familiar to everyone and have become the classics of photography, a number of photographs are presented for the first time. The prominent photographer has worked with his photography archive for over twenty years, and says that he still discovers forgotten moments, many affecting images from the past. These works feature the whole epoch of the art of photography and nicely introduce the 20th-century-Lithuania and its people. The exhibition also includes photographs taken by the author over the last couple of years.
As a photographer, A. Sutkus has gone a long way to reach the door to success – from a teenager taking photos of sparrows high on wires, his classmates, neighbours, relatives, women in the Ežerėlis peat bog “tumbling the peat up to the horizon and back“ to the renowned author whose works have travelled across many countries. His exhibitions were held in Paris, Helsinki, Chicago, Zurich, Boston, London, Odense, Hamburg, Stockholm, Curitiba, Madrid, and other cities around the world.
“Ežerėlis – a small town of my childhood was desolate, dirty, beggarly, full of danger“, – remembers 80-yeras-old Antanas Sutkus. “Hellish, unskilled jobs and drunkenness prevailed there, a mixture of various nationalities, scuffle, knives“.
In the environment of the barracks of Ežerėlis, an ever-hungry child for whom of great taste were pancakes baked on the locomotive oil by his mom, happened to grow… Many years later, A. Sutkus has become a world-famous photographer.
Who or what was an incentive for a province boy to start watching the world through the “eye“ of a camera purchased for his first earnings while coupling a trailer to a tractor?
“I have no idea why photography entered my life“, – A. Sutkus shrugs his shoulders, – “I lived then in my grandfather’s farm in Kluoniškės, near Zapyškis. Neither have I seen any of the works of world-class photographers, nor have I actually interacted with any professional photographer who would inspire, encourage, or something like that. I remember once being photographed standing by a birch tree by a photographer passing by, that’s all the acquaintance”.
Where did a young man learn, gradually digressing from naive views and landscapes, to see not only with eyes but also with a heart which was extremely responsive to social aspects, interrelationships, unplayed emotions, sincerity – all those things which, as Sutkus notes, are the most important things for him in photography?
What was it that sharpened the hearing and vision of his soul?
Was it a suicide of his father whom he was not destined to know? Or tuberculosis in his early childhood and the books he used to “swallow“ at the sanatorium in Kulautuva? Maybe enchanting views of the Nemunas valleys seen from the hill in Zapyškis? Could it be the routine of post-war years – the presentiment of death, gunshots, the possibility to be exiled to Siberia at any moment with the loved ones? Whether poverty, hunger, social exclusion that threatened time and again?.
At present day, A. Sutkus – a laureate of the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize, the winner of Dr. Erich Salomon Prize is compared to Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt and other world-class figures in humanistic, photo-journalistic photography. Thomas Schirmböck, an outstanding publisher of photo albums and exhibition curator, describes A. Sutkus, who has grown his talent near Kaunas in the Zapyškis neighbourhood, a „giant of European photography”.
The curators of the exhibition photographers Berta Tilmantaitė and Artūras Morozovas aim to present A. Sutkus not only as a legend of photography, a strong creative personality, but also a true and openhearted person with all the qualities he has – hesitation, joy, nostalgia for youth and curiosity for the present.
Jūratė Kuzmickaitė
Curators: Berta Tilmantaitė and Artūras Morozovas
Design: Inga Navickaitė-Drąsutė