ALIGMANTAS KEZYS

The following text is taken from “Aligmantas Kezys/A retrospective”, Chicago, 1995.

BIOGRAPHY

Aligmantas Kezys was born in Lithuania in 1928. Fleeing to the West prior to the Soviet occupation of his native country, Kezys came to the United States in 1950 to study and eventually to be ordained as a Jesuit priest. In 1956 he received an M.A. in Philosophy from Loyola University in Chicago. Assigned to the Lithuanian province of the Jesuit Fathers he served his countrymen in Chicago and other cities in the United States. He founded the Lithuanian Photo Library and has served as its president since 1966. He also founded and is presently the Chairman of the Board of the Lithuanian Library Press in Chicago. From 1974 to 1977 he directed the Lithuanian Youth Center in Chicago.

Kezys fostered his own artistic inclinations by immersing himself in the art of photography and in 1965 his artistic talent was recognised with his first exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has since exhibited in a number of American and European museums and his work has appeared in magazines and books on both sides of the Atlantic. Now a former Jesuit, Kezys operates a small gallery in Stickney, Illinois, that represents Lithuanian artists worldwide and publishes reviews, catalogs, and books on art and religion.

ARTIST'SSTATEMENT

“I believe the camera is a mechanical tool for communication between individuals. The process of photographic communication begins with the photographer’s inner self. It continues through the mechanics of photography, which act as transmitters of his thoughts, feelings and vision to another individual. The photographer’s inner eye has as much to do with a photograph that communicates, as his other eye which actually looks through the view finder. Photography is not what’s important. It’s seeing. The camera, film, even pictures are not important. What is important is the fact that you see and that you make others see by means of your photographs.

All this proves to me, that there are not different kinds of photography, but that there are different ways of seeing and feeling about the world, which in turn produce ‘kinds’ in the photographic medium. And so, a personal style in photography is possible despite the inherent objectivity of the medium. But the momentum for it must generate from within. Personal style cannot be imposed. It can probably be cultivated, striven for and finally achieved. But its blueprint must be present within the confines of one’s own mental setup. The secret of developing a style in photography is a matter of discovering oneself.

I am a single-picture photographer. Form attracts me more than content. Content plays a secondary role. It does not matter to me whether the picture is of a man, or of a bird, or of a rock. Each subject gets equal attention and is equally exciting if it happens to be in a meaningful form. A disadvantage? Yes. A danger? And possibly a trap. But one should never be jealous in the race of arts. The world is so full of beauty and meaning that there is enough of it for everybody - to explore, to relish and to transform, each in his own way. My way is that of a photographer who gets excited (in a tourist fashion) by sunsets, shadows, reflection and sometimes by faces. There is nothing to prove, nothing to boast about, except the plain fact that a spark of beauty has been found in some remote corner of the globe.”