Photobloc
Central Europe in Photobooks
Exhibition architecture for Lithuanian National Gallery of Art
2021
Photobloc is the first comprehensive and critically aware exhibition addressing the tumultuous history of Central Europe as illustrated by albums, artist books and propaganda publications. A broad international perspective paints a picture of shared fate of inhabitants of this part of the continent. More than a hundred books from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania illustrate how photography reflected the processes of formulation of new identity of societies and young states of Central Europe, shaping their image, ideology, dreams of modernization and the future.
The narrative of the exhibition is divided into six thematic chapters. It takes the viewer through the 20th century from the moment when the first mass printed photobooks were issued, through the period of revived and newly formed states, the trauma of another world war and wide-scale modernization that intersected with reproduced propaganda images of mass suffering and death. The display also featured publications documenting everyday life, social processes and attitudes in the 1960s and '70s up to the present day, as well as the era of political, cultural, and technological transformation.
Curators Łukasz Gorczyca, Adam Mazur, Natalia Żak
Coordinator Ieva Mazūraitė-Novickienė
Architect Povilas Vincentas Jankūnas
Graphic design Laura Grigaliūnaitė
Photographer Gintarė Grigėnaitė
