On Friday, 26 January, 5:30 pm, a retrospective exhibition by Raimundas Urbonas (1963–1999), entitled Life Under the Table (Gyvenimas po stalu) will be launched at Kaunas Photography Gallery (Vilniaus g. 2). The exhibition includes over seventy original prints, a short documentary film and unique exhibits featuring the photographer’s personal albums. Most of the exhibits have already been displayed in Vilnius. In Kaunas, the exhibition will be open until 25 February and subsequently will be shown at the Šiauliai Museum of Photography. The exhibition is curated by Danguolė Ruškienė and Remigijus Treigys and organised by the Artists Association (Kūrėjų sąjunga, Klaipėda).
Life Under the Table is the largest exhibition carried out as part of Kūrėjų Sąjunga’s project dedicated to the memory of the photographer R. Urbonas. The first event, ‘From Wall to Wall’ (Nuo sienos iki sienos), took place last summer at the Priekulė Railway Station. It featured one of Urbonas’s most important photographic series, entitled East Prussia (Rytų Prūsija, 1991–1992). This series is also on display at the Kaunas Photography Gallery. The second exhibition dedicated to Urbonas, entitled We Kept Blowing Smoke and Mornings Were Dawning (Mes vis pūtėme dūmus ir aušo rytai), by Benas Šarka was exhibited in a defunct bookstore in Klaipėda, the building of which used to serve as a meeting place for the city’s bohemians. Urbonas died tragically in a storm in 1999. He would have turned 60 years old in 2023. To mark this occasion, the Artists Association, bringing together artists from various fields, some of whom had close ties with him, has initiated a series of events dedicated to Urbonas, entitled ‘Lost/Found Worlds. The Photography of Raimundas Urbonas’ (Pra/rasti pasauliai. Raimundo Urbono fotografija).
Alongside the photographs, the exhibition in Kaunas features a short documentary, entitled Sepia (Sepija, 1991; duration: 16 minutes; direction and script by Aušra Lukošiūnienė; cinematography by L. Karvelis; soundtrack by Povilas Vaitkevičius). This is the only surviving video recording of Urbonas’s trip to Kaliningrad, when he photographed the East Prussia series, as well as of his interviews, reflections on photography, and creative processes in his photo laboratory. It is this film that has lent the current exhibition its title, Life Under the Table – a quotation of Urbonas’s own description, in the film, of his state and position in the field of culture at that time.
The exhibition also features Urbonas’s personal albums. They include photographs of friends and family, the author’s notes, and drawings illustrating the links among the port city’s artists. These fading photographs also depict the first of their hippie trips across the former Soviet Union, and the beginnings of what is perhaps Urbonas’s least explored series, Requiem for Old Jeans (Rekviem seniems džinsams1982). Another album contains a little-known series by Urbonas, entitled Naked Klaipėda (Nuoga Klaipėda), created in Klaipėda after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, around 1990.
Raimundas Urbonas (1963–1999) entered Klaipėda’s cultural field quite early, becoming interested in photography around 1985, and by 1987 he was already winning international awards. Almost at the same time, he joined the Lithuanian Photographers Association, and in 1989 he became a member of the renowned Doooooris artist group. Urbonas was not only a talented artist, but also an active participant in exhibitions, holding both solo exhibitions and participating in group exhibitions. He was distinguished by his characteristic, penetrating perception of the environment, mainly photographing objects and people in their everyday natural surroundings. A little later, he became deeply interested in the history of East Prussia and was planning to publish a photographic album. Urbonas’s photography is widely known in Klaipėda and continues to hold a significant place in the history of Lithuanian photography.
In the words of the exhibition’s curator, art historian D. Ruškienė: “R. Urbonas was a passer-by. He kept moving time, and time did not let him stop. Perhaps for this reason, his photographic image always denotes a more active or a slower transition: if not a movement, then breathing. If not life, then its lingering warmth. Looking at the photographic prints, it becomes evident that the telephone receiver will not be picked up, the door will never be closed, and the socket’s black cavities will continue to gape with nothing to feed with electricity. With a casual wave of the hand, my gaze is taken towards the dim light. It no longer matters what it has scorched, what came before. The captured moment is only an in-between state, a passage that began some time ago and has not yet ended. It is just a separate segment of the process. The author invites you to observe but does not oblige you to see. He invites you to listen, but it is not necessary to hear. You can participate in his constructed world by remaining on the sidelines.’
Photographs and albums on loan from the Lithuanian Photographers Association, the Museum of the History of Lithuania Minor, and the author’s family and friends. The documentary film was lent by Vėgėlės Filmai.