Ugnius Gelguda - Crimescapes

"Old Firework Causes Disaster"

"Flaming Last Years Grass Almost Burn Homestead"

"Snow, Frost Punish Strays"

Crimescapes is the newest book from the Vilnius based Lithuanian photographer Ugnius Gelguda.

I met Ugnius a couple of years ago when I was researching for a show I curated in Fotohof of contemporary Lithuanian photography. I was able to get Ugnius to Salzburg to make a body of work fitting into his ongoing series about the phenomenon of sensational newspaper headlines and the often obscure photographs which accompany them. The larger body of work in the book is based on the Lithuanian mass media, specifically daily newspapers which focus on disaster and crime. Because we are visual creatures, the atrocious and heart-renching events can't go un illustrated so the images which we are often presented with headlines are simply symbolic metaphors alluding to the event. Ugnius' work processes this gap between what the headline evokes, and what the illustration presents us. The book is broken into 2 sections, the Lithuanian work and the Salzburg series. Though the landscape changes a bit, it is interesting to see that the awkward relationship between text and image is universal.

It is published by Artbooks in Vilnius and cooincides with his show at the Vartai Gallery earlier this year in Vilnius.

Hardbound, 80 Pages. Lithuanian and English.