On October 29, “Fotohonap”, Budapest Month of Photography opened an exhibition “Traces – Contemporary Baltic Photography”, featuring Lithuanian photography presented by Kaunas Photo festival. The curator of the Lithuanian part, Mindaugas Kavaliauskas, by responding to the subject of past and memory, selected works of Darius Kuzmickas, Gintaras Česonis, Donatas Stankevičius and his work in association with that of Aleksandras Macijauskas. The exhibition at the architecture center FUGA was on display until November 27, 2014.

Darius Kuzmickas lives in between two worlds. His neighbors, customers, buyers of his books and prints, consider him as American. While the artist himself considers himself Lithuanian who lives in the US for two decades. Photography for him is a commercial activity, allowing the excellence of architecture photography bloom and earn him a living. This kind of photography, created by Darius Kuzmickas is emotional, crisp, yet realistic, translating the luxurious lighting, spaces, forms, materials and patterns of hotels, casinos. But when this photographer takes artistic steps, his high-definistion camera is left aside, and the pinhole starts the spontaneous recording the pulse of time, moods, atmospheres. The 6th KAUNAS PHOTO in 2009 invited Darius Kuzmickas for an artistic residence in his native town, Kaunas, its most intensive street, called Savanorių prospektas. This street is joked to end in Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. In this work, the artist was joining the parallel worlds, those of a professional photographer and an artist, of a realist and a dreamer, connoisseur and the eternal laws of physics. Consequently, were born images, containing two layers of reality – of interiors, decorated by external views. In this project, Darius Kuzmickas found a way to extend his professionalism and follow-up with his artistic quest in converting living rooms of flats, hotel rooms, offices, production facilities, staircases and even class-rooms of the school he attended 20 years before, into cameras obscuras and inviting the flipped outside views inside. As the photographer pointed out, this adventure with camera obscura allowed to match the visible and invisible worlds that hide from each other in the horizons of consciousness and subconsciousness. In 2010, the 7th KAUNAS PHOTO festival presented an exhibition of large – format images, entitled “Camera Obscura: Savanoriai”, depicting inside and outside views of the longest street of Kaunas.

FUGA - Budapesti Építészeti Központ, 1052 Budapest, Petőfi Sándor street 5. | 2014. October 29. - 2014. November 27.