Exhibiting the world’s brutality

VILNIUS - Good photos remain in the subliminal mind forever – for example, British soul singer Seal (on June 21 he will give his concert in Vilnius’ Pramogu Arena – www.bilietai.lt for ticket purchase) says he remembers Vilnius and other cities, which he visited before, only because of photos he made in those cities. It is unlikely that somebody will remember for a long time press photos of some faceless functionaries looking at the camera while they shake hands with other faceless functionaries - the exhibition titled “World Press Photo ’11” presents photos (some of them are quite shocking) of a different type, which can be remembered for the rest of your life. These photos are on show in the Lukiskiu Square until July 3. The exhibition of the best world media photos is free of charge. Visiting hours: daily, from 00:00 to 24:00.

This traditional annual exhibition is now also on show in Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow and Paris. It will be shown in Sydney, Mexico and many other cities soon. However, only in Vilnius (and this is the first time in the World Press Photo exhibition’s history) are photos on show under the open sky.

World Press Photo is an Amsterdam-based organization which imposed on itself a mission to encourage high professional standards in photojournalism and to promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information. It organizes the annual photo contests. In the past, Lithuanians were among the winners in this competition: in 1974, Irena Giedraitiene won the first prize in the category “Daily Life” with a black-and-white photo of two newlywed pairs, where all four young men and women stand near the pier of Palanga and watch the Baltic Sea, with the photographer’s camera behind their backs.

Several dozen of the world media’s best photos of the last year (the winners were announced in Amsterdam on May 7 this year) are on show in Vilnius. Some 5,700 photographers from 125 countries sent 109,000 photos for the 54th annual competition. The exhibition in Vilnius was organized in cooperation between Lithuania and the Netherlands to mark the 20th anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries. On June 6, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, Dutch Ambassador Joep Wijnands and Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas participated in the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Azubalis pointed out that these photos, promoting freedom of information, are on show in front of the former KGB headquarters (on Gedimino Avenue), which fought against such freedom.

There is a square-form fenced-in area inside that photo exhibition, in the very place where the statue of Lenin stood from 1952-1991, which has a warning near the entrance that photos inside this closed area can be harmful to look at for minors. To give an idea about the brutality of the photos inside that closed area, it is enough to say that the famous cover photo from the magazine Time, made by South African photographer Jodi Bieber (he won the premier award of the World Press Photo), was not considered brutal enough by the organizers of the exhibition and is placed outside that area non-advisable for minors. The photo by Bieber presents the face of the 18-year-old Afghan young woman Bibi Aisha – her nose was sliced off (the Taliban sliced off her ears and nose as a punishment for her escape from her husband).

Inside that non-minors area there is a photo of a man, aged around 40, who, after covering himself in flammable liquid, set himself on fire and jumped from the Liberty Bridge in Budapest – his suicidal fall is pictured. There are also photos of dozens of naked corpses ready for burial after the earthquake in Tibet, and photos of dead people after battles between groups of Mexico’s drug mafias. One photo of those Mexican gang wars presents a photo of a man’s cut off head laid on the ground – that murder took place near Mexico’s border with the USA.

Those photos indeed can provoke mixed feelings about mankind’s contemporary ethics. It could remind one of a scene in the famous Hollywood movie The People vs. Larry Flynt (directed by Czech Milos Forman who paid tribute to Flynt, pornographic magazine publisher and editor, as a fighter for press freedom) where Flynt gives his public speech presenting mainstream media’s brutal photos and stating that the danger for society’s psyche are these photos, not his magazine.    

In the area outside that fenced-in territory on Lukiskiu Square, there is a photo from a Mexican movie about the drug mafia wars – now this type of action movie is very popular in Mexico. There is also one photo of two faceless functionaries in that exhibition, because that photo is a historical one: the first public appearance of North Korea’s communist dictator, Kim Jong Il, together with his son Kim Jong-un, who is considered to be the future successor after his father’s reign – the father is sick (in all senses of this word). The exhibition also presents nice photos of whooper swans, which are northern hemisphere swans, with a range of habitat from Iceland to beyond Japan, and nasty photos of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico near the shores of Louisiana.

Those who want to watch more shocking photos can go down Gedimino Avenue to Kudirkos Square, situated in front of the Lithuanian PM’s office, where the archive photo exhibition is open from June 12-27. This photo exhibition, organized by the Lithuanian National Library, presents photos about the massacre of 73 political prisoners (mostly young people, members of prewar Lithuania’s patriotic and Catholic organizations) committed by the Soviet army and its local collaborators in the Rainiai Forest near the Lithuanian town of Telsiai on June 24, 1941, during which Soviet soldiers scalped their victims, made belts from the skin, plucked out their eyes, cut out their tongues, and cut off the men’s genitals before stuffing them in their mouths - all of this while the victims were still alive. Both exhibitions are bilingual – texts in Lithuanian and English.