The Forms of Things, The Forms of Skulls, Forms of Love

Lithuanian photographs from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Centre Pompidou, and the Lithuanian Photographers Association

Beginning in the late 1970s, when Lithuania had been under Soviet rule for three decades, more than 1,600 prints entered the collections of what is today the BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) thanks to donations from the 22 photographers. This body of work, centred on a generation of photographers who worked mainly in the 1960s to 1980s, reveals a highly expressive scene characterised by eternal, metaphysical themes. Pantheistic relationship with nature, close connections between humans and the animal kingdom, cohabitation of generations, and existential angst: These works furnish a poignant illustration of a country whose dense forests, spirit of resistance, and passion for poetry have come together to forge a powerful and multifaceted identity. Though not well known by the public today, the Lithuanian School of Photography had at the time a unique reputation throughout the Soviet Union and beyond, opposing to the dictates of ‘socialist realism’ a sensitive and polysemous representation of reality.

Recently, as part of preparations for the Season of Lithuania in France, the Centre Pompidou initiated a series of acquisitions of Lithuanian photography, creating a pendant to the BnF collections, bringing together artists from the subsequent generation (mainly the 1980s and 1990s). Breaking away from their elders, while still contending with state coercion despite the political “thaw”, these artists stand out for their scepticism, their reserve or, on the contrary, their brashness. Everyday life is at times transfigured into curious fragments, at others into tragicomic compositions; boredom into mystical experience; solitude into a theatre of intimacy. Experimentation, performance, and a mise en abyme of the medium reshape the contours of photography. Women photographers take a stand.

Selected prints from these two ensembles are complemented by prints from the collection of the Lithuanian Photographers Association – a historical institution and partner of the project – as well as by a few contemporary works that demonstrate the vitality of a scene more conscious than ever of its history. Each of these works enters into its own dialogue with the preceding generations. But the painful memories of the country’s recent past, reactivated by the present crises, as well as a new awareness of global environmental issues, have changed artistic practices and photographers’ gaze on their world.

The exhibition title is borrowed from a poem by Mantas Balakauskas (born in 1989).

The collection can be discovered on the first floor of the Grand Palais in the Salon d’Honneur.