TY - JOUR AU - Šapoka, Kęstutis PY - 2022/12/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Concept of the Exhibition at the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania ‘The Chameleon Colours’: Lithuanian Soviet Photography as a Construct of Ideological Reality in 1978–1982 JF - Relevant Tomorrow JA - RT VL - 1 IS - 20 SE - Articles DO - 10.51740/RT.1.20.4 UR - https://journals.lnb.lt/relevant-tomorrow/article/view/806 SP - 74–92 AB - <p>The&nbsp;article presents an explication of the&nbsp;concept of the&nbsp;exhibition ‘The&nbsp;Chameleon Colours’ held at the&nbsp;Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania from&nbsp;7&nbsp;July&nbsp;to&nbsp;26&nbsp;August&nbsp;2022. The&nbsp;exhibition is treated as a&nbsp;response to severe issues related to&nbsp;the&nbsp;political, cultural and even mental legacy of the&nbsp;Soviet era emerging against the&nbsp;background of today’s geopolitical upheavals, one them being the&nbsp;war in Ukraine. The&nbsp;exhibition, the&nbsp;title of which replicates that of the&nbsp;novel by the&nbsp;Lithuanian Soviet author Jonas&nbsp;Avyžius, compared the&nbsp;1979–1982&nbsp;propaganda photo reportages by the&nbsp;news agency Elta and samples of visual underground avant-garde works. The&nbsp;factor bridging these works are (social)&nbsp;realities of that time period, but these two categories of works demonstrate diametrically opposite conceptions. The&nbsp;analysis of photo essays by Elta revealed the&nbsp;official Soviet ideological ‘filter’, which was being ‘put’ onto the&nbsp;reality. The&nbsp;samples of the&nbsp;so-called artistic underground, on the&nbsp;one hand, stem from the&nbsp;contemporary situation within the&nbsp;social peripheral or even the&nbsp;out-of-the-margin zones&nbsp;(feelings, conditions and impulsive reflections). On&nbsp;the&nbsp;other&nbsp;hand, the&nbsp;‘chaos’ and eclecticism of these art objects, photographs and collages are characterized by an internal logic typical for the&nbsp;Western <em>neo&nbsp;avant-garde </em>of the&nbsp;50s and 60s of the&nbsp;20th&nbsp;century as&nbsp;well&nbsp;as for the&nbsp;informal <em>conceptualism </em>of Central and East&nbsp;Europe&nbsp;(including the&nbsp;Soviet Union). These&nbsp;works represent the&nbsp;effort to deidealize, disclose and depoliticize and, in a&nbsp;particular way, re-politicize the&nbsp;<em>per se </em>(social)&nbsp;reality.</p> ER -