Adauktas Marcinkevičius “Photographs 1954-1959”

Adauktas Marcinkevičius’ creative career coincided with the process of the Krushchev Thaw in the Soviet Union, which brought the hope of breathing more freely and dreaming more boldly. <...> Avoiding revolutionary fervor, and finding inspiration in the tried-and-tested prewar Western and Russian avant-garde, Marcinkevičius, the herald of the “thaw” in Lithuanian photography, melted the ice instead breaking it. This strategy enabled him to balance the possible and the impossible, safe and suspicious levels of photographic art, in the still barely open doorway to artistic freedom, and pave the way for new names: Antanas Sutkus, Algimantas Kunčius, Romualdas Rakauskas, Aleksandras Macijauskas, Vitas Luckus, and others.