GEORGE MACIUNAS TURNS 95! EXHIBITION “AUDRIUS NAUJOKAITIS: NEW YORK REFLECTIONS”

From Saturday, November 7, the Kaunas Picture Gallery (K. Donelaičio St. 16, Kaunas) invites visitors to the exhibition Audrius Naujokaitis: New York Reflections, dedicated to the 95th anniversary of George Maciunas’s birth.

The exhibition presents 30 photographs capturing New York between 1997 and 1999, a city whose everyday life, people and cultural scene have changed beyond recognition over the past decades. It is a story not only about a city, but also about an artistic community, friendships and connections spanning different periods in time.

A New York That No Longer Exists

Audrius Naujokaitis (1961–2012) captured everyday life in New York in his photographs, sometimes spontaneously, at other times through carefully composed scenes. With a keen eye for reflections, he brings together and layers different planes of the image, lending unexpected meanings to the details of everyday life. Fragments of street life become subtle, often colourful urban still lifes and portraits.

“Today, these photographs have become a unique record of time, allowing us to reflect not only on how the city has changed, but also on our own relationship with time. The New York captured by Naujokaitis no longer exists. It has been shaped by the passage of time, urban development, new generations and historical events. Yet the photographs preserve the city, its people, moments and relationships, some of which now belong to history,” says exhibition curator Lina Pranaitytė.

Jonas Mekas – A Link Between Different Eras

Among the people captured in the photographs are Audrius’s brother, musician Dalius Naujokaitis, performer Patti Smith and others. Yet the central figure in this series is Jonas Mekas, whose image recurs throughout the photographs.

Like Mekas, Naujokaitis documented New York as if keeping a diary, using a camera not for filmmaking, but for photography. Mekas expressed his recollections through cinema and poetry, while Naujokaitis did so through photography. His images are cinematic, at times resembling still frames from a film in which time stands still. The double-exposure technique allows several different scenes and stories to overlap within a single frame.

Naujokaitis and Mekas were connected not only by their artistic interests, but also by family history. After arriving in America, Audrius worked at Anthology Film Archives, founded by Mekas. Audrius’s father, Antanas Naujokaitis, oversaw the publication of Mekas’s writings in Lithuania and handled other matters related to promoting his work. The Naujokaitis family’s relationship with Mekas was therefore multifaceted, spanning several generations.

George Maciunas and Reflections of the Fluxus Scene

Although Jonas Mekas was not a member of Fluxus, he was closely connected to the movement and its founder, George Maciunas. New York was a different place when Mačiūnas and his fellow artists walked its streets. In Naujokaitis’s photographs, the city appears transformed: several decades have passed, and the rhythms of its people, streets and cultural life have changed.

Yet Mekas’s presence symbolically connects these different historical periods. He walked the streets of New York with both Maciunas and Naujokaitis at different times, becoming a living bridge between distinct moments in the city’s history. Although George Maciunas does not appear in these photographs, his presence can almost be sensed in the reflections of the Fluxus era that linger within them.

A Painter Who Discovered Photography

Audrius Naujokaitis moved to New York in 1992. Until then, he had been best known in Lithuania as a painter. During the approximately fourteen years he spent in New York, he also emerged as a photographer. According to Dr Vidas Poškus, it was his background in painting that shaped his photographic approach, which drew on the principles of painterly composition: reflection, colour contrast, chiaroscuro and layers of colour.

After returning to Lithuania in 2006, the artist developed a new painterly language, but this period was brief. His short life was marked by intense artistic activity, a rebellious spirit and a refusal to conform to established norms. This colourful and vivid biography is reflected in his photographs.

A New Story About Fluxus in the Museum Collection

The M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art acquired a series of 40 photographs by Audrius Naujokaitis as an addition to its Fluxus collection.

“The collection contains numerous artworks, including objects, publications and documentary material, but photographs are considerably less represented. These works therefore enrich the museum’s evolving narrative about Fluxus and its milieu with visual testimonies, offering a different perspective on the movement’s figures and their surroundings,” says Miglė Morkūnaitė-Vervečkienė, curator of the Fluxus collection and the exhibition.

Audrius is no longer with us. But his works remain – his paintings and photographs. Through them, the connection between New York and Lithuania lives on, sustained by art, the people who create it, friendships and shared experiences.

Exhibition curators: Miglė Morkūnaitė-Vervečkienė, Lina Pranaitytė

Exhibition designer: Julija Tolvaišytė-Leonavičienė

Friend of the Exhibition: Genys Brewing Co. Non-Alcoholic

This is a public event and may be filmed and photographed. By attending, you consent to being included in event photographs and video recordings and acknowledge that these images and recordings may be published publicly.