Rokas Pralgauskas’ exhibition “Finds, Silver Dust and Other Flowers” will be launched at Vilnius Photography Gallery (Stiklių str. 4 Didžioji str. 19) on 15 October, 5.30pm
Describing Rokas Pralgauskas’ works is a complicated task: on one hand, the artist’s new series “Finds, Silver Dust and Other Flowers” creates a sort of mise-en-scène of the day to day life; on the other, the poems that “interrupt” this cycle disassociate the viewer from the mundanity and instead make them search the photographs for traces of a lover. However, the longer you look at the series, the stronger the impression becomes that what the artist is portraying is our imperfect reality, so out of reach in today’s aesthetic world, in which every overexposed, flash-lighting image depicts the latest design trends.
As the artist himself states, “this series of images are mostly scans done in a studio or photographs re-taken there of people’s lost belongings, trash that was picked up, forgotten old sketches, remains of drafts that collect dust in the archives of creative work, torn pieces from postcards, negatives, and other singular items, both fictively constructed and found in domestic environments, in nature: all that which, once consciously selected and sorted, comes to life and speaks in a photograph. Although such visual documentation of things that seem to be completely unrelated to each other might appear to be about nothing, yet by means of aesthetic expression, the ability to create a mood, absurd humour and visual wittiness, emotionally effective photography touches the viewer with its metaphors between the lines, just as good poetry would”.
The album of R. Pralgauskas’ photography series that came out right before the launch of the exhibition is as if it were the artist’s diary, which was probably most accurately described by Agnė Narušytė, who ends her introductory text with the following thought: “Long live the imperfect and the ever unique reality in which everything is how it should not be”.
After joining the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers in 2005, Rokas Pralgauskas (b. 1984) started actively participating in group exhibitions in Stockholm, Berlin, Italy and other European countries, and has worked on artists’ film sets. In Lithuania, the photographer’s work has been presented in the following exhibitions: “Us, Them and Some Out-takes” in the Contemporary Art Centre (2007); “1907-2007. Private Conversations” in “Vartai” Gallery (2007); “The Sweet Sweat of the Future” in the National Gallery of Art. Exhibitions of his personal work have been held by such institutions as Giedre Bartelt Galerie (Berlin), Vilnius Photography Gallery and KCCC (Klaipeda Culture Communication Center). The artist lives and creates in Vilnius.
Live traditional Lithuanian wooden bells’ (skrabalai) music will be played during the opening.
The exhibition will run until 9 November.
The exhibition is partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.