2021.08.11 - 2021.09.04 / "Prospekto" Gallery (Gedimino Ave 43, Vilnius)
From August 11th to September 4th, Vytenis Jankūnas’ new photography and video exhibition will be open at the Prospektas Photography Gallery in Vilnius. The artist has on display two of his latest projects: “Nocturnal Creatures” and “Dance With Me” This is already his 8th personal show in Vilnius.
“Nocturnal Creatures” is a photography project about the humans of big Metropolis by night. People are partying, going to art events, or just wandering around and minding their business. “What I was trying to do is to tell my own story through these people,” says the artist. All pictures are not staged, but rather a street photography, but the artist edited them his own way, erasing backgrounds and adding narrative elements to it. People in Vytenis’ images become city dwellers without the actual city. They look like actors on a theater stage playing their own stories about New York by night.
The video-slideshow “Dance With Me” is about the artist's journey through NYC during Covid19 epidemic. To him it was a horrible and at the same time uplifting experience. Vytenis saw NYC like never before. There are 4 sections in this video. 1st “Humans Just left Manhattan” is about emptied out Manhattan’s haunted streets. 2nd “Desperate Hours” is about the struggle humans had at the beginning of the pandemic. 3rd “The End of Fancy Shopping” is about Madison Avenue and SoHo abandoned high fashion stores. 4th “The Time Was Now” is about social unrest, which followed J. Floyd killing, and transformations of the neighborhoods, first parties and slow revival of the city life as usual.
Soundtrack: Žibuoklė Martinaitytė "Chant des Voyelles"
Performed by VOLTI San Francisco, conductor Robert Geary.
Live concert recording, May 4th, 2018
Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco, California.