PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK “DANCE WITH ME”
The Lewben Art Foundation together with Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation has published new art album – photography book Dance With Me by Vytenis Jankūnas. This photo album would probably not have come into being were it not for the global pandemic that struck in 2020. The four parts of the album make up four stories of New York throughout the pandemic, opening up various aspects of a single era, and at the same time merging it all into a single narrative. Published in 2021, 270 pages of full color photos, Swiss binding. /// TO PURCHASE ///: artbooks.lt or email to vytenis@vycka.com
I have lived in New York for 25 years, but I never expected to see this city as it was in 2020*. This change affected me so profoundly, that I took my camera and went to photograph as much as I could in order to capture this unique moment in our lives. Disobeying isolation rules from the first day of the quarantine, I entered an empty Manhattan for my personal journey. The urge to document everything was much stronger than the fear of falling sick. I was driving my car on the deserted highways and wandering through the empty streets and squares on foot in complete silence and solitude, meeting almost no one on my way. Manhattan looked like a huge Hollywood set from an apocalyptic movie. The turbulent events which happened later (public unrest and demonstrations due to the police killing of an unarmed man in Minneapolis), added a new angle to the whole ordeal: massive police presence, boarded storefronts and people with not much to do because of the sudden closure of many businesses and institutions. The revival of street art and the first outdoor parties followed.
On one of those hectic days of 2020, I was walking in the neighborhood of SoHo and suddenly one store window caught my eye. The window display was emptied of merchandise except the letters on the glass front, which read ‘Dance With Me.’ I took a picture of it and later realized that it would be a perfect name and a cover for this book, as if I were inviting a spectator to “dance” with me through the New York of 2020* by looking at my pictures. The last section of the book I called The Time Was Now, paraphrasing the popular expression ‘The Time Is Now’ because this scary and at the same time exciting time Was already and, hopefully, will never be repeated.
Vytenis Jankūnas, October 6, 2021, New York City
* Most of the pictures in this book are from spring, summer and fall of 2020, and some are from the winter of 2021 in order to encompass a full year.
/// TO PURCHASE ///: artbooks.lt or email to vytenis@vycka.com
Author (all photography and story concept): © 2021 Vytenis Jankūnas
Publishers: Lewben Art Foundation, Lithuanian Expatriate Art Foundation
Compiler: Ugnė Bužinskaitė
Text authors: Ugnė Makauskaitė, Justina Augustytė
Design – Indrė Klimaitė / KlimaiteKlimaite
Year: 2021 // 270 pages, full color photos, Swiss binding
Print: Kopa
Sponsors: Lewben, Equite, Enercom Capital, Strategy Labs, Nordgain, Rebel Financing
