Jonas Kulikauskas Reimagines the Ghetto

LOS ANGELES — In Jonas Kulikauskas’s black and white pictures, the peaceable streets of Vilnius, Lithuania, disguise a darkish secret. The cobblestones hint the footprint of the Vilna Ghetto, the place practically 40,000 Jews lived throughout the Holocaust.

In I Usually Forget, Kulikauskas’s solo exhibition at California State College, Los Angeles, the photographer illuminates a historical past that, till lately, has been obscured by students. In 1941, about 265,000 Jews had been pressured to dwell within the Vilna Ghetto, however by 1943, about 95% of them had been murdered or relocated to focus camps. With the neighborhood decimated, Jewish tales practically vanished. After the autumn of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian authorities reopened its Jewish museum and erected memorials, however up to date life nonetheless paid little consideration to the Jewish tradition that after thrived of their neighborhood. With a World Struggle II period lens mounted to a contemporary, 8 x 10 medium format digicam physique, Kulikauskas recreated the archival aesthetics of the ghetto with modernity shining via his topics: a cafégoer typing on their laptop computer, a supply driver with their COVID-19 facemask pulled over their chin, and a marriage occasion celebrating their union on haunted grounds.

The present’s title refers to a phrase generally spoken amongst Holocaust survivors, “always remember,” however Kulikauskas’s pictures usually are not about forgetting, however relatively, by no means being taught. In a didactic positioned on the entrance of the gallery, Kulikauskas writes in regards to the lack of schooling he acquired within the Lithuanian Catholic faculty he and his siblings attended in Southern California. 

“My sister Rima advised me that, to her embarrassment, she first discovered of [the Holocaust] from a Jewish pal in her faculty days,” he wrote. Revisiting his Twelfth-grade textbook, he made a discovery. “World Struggle II is described over seventeen pages. The phrase ‘Žydai,’ or Jews, is nowhere to be discovered. My brother Andrius identified that, in reality, Quantity III consists of info on the Litvaks. A chapter merely entitled ‘Jews’ accommodates just one sentence in regards to the Holocaust.”

For that reason, I Usually Overlook takes on varied exhibition strategies discovered throughout artwork establishments, historical past museums, and battle memorials. Alongside Kulikauskas’s pictures are maps and timelines of the ghetto, metal-framed reproductions of presidency ordinances that outlined the strict guidelines for Jews to observe, and enormous, expository didactics that present historic background for the Vilna Ghetto and the ponary, a killing area. These instructional strategies are proper at house in a college gallery, on condition that two-thirds of younger adults are unfamiliar with the Holocaust. 

Kulikauskas presents all his pictures in plain, manila folder dossiers, forcing a tactile, archival expertise. The quaint photos are paired with testimonials from Vilna Ghetto survivors, pulled from deep analysis into books, essays, and movies. It forces the viewer to intently study the images and juxtapose the banal city scenes with the horrors that after transpired of their place. In “Rūdninkų Avenue No. 6, Vilnius, Lithuania, (Former Judenrat Headquarters, Vilna Ghetto 1)” (2021), an elegant lady in sun shades and strappy sandals struts throughout a constructing with a glass door and romantic, crumbling facade. Subsequent to the picture is a block of textual content by Abraham Sutzkever, a Yiddish poet, ghetto survivor, and witness on the Nuremberg trials, who describes a harrowing scene that befell on the identical road: “On Rudnitske (Rūdninkų) Avenue 4, on the foot of the picket gate, a half-naked lady was mendacity on a pile of rags within the throes of an epileptic seizure. The moon lit up her raveled hair and lent her cheeks an unnatural inexperienced hue.” The 2 ladies are foils, however solely the trendy one’s picture will progress in historical past. Behind our fashionista, trowels relaxation on a window ledge, quickly to cowl up the brick that peeks via the cracked concrete facade. It’s a delicate metaphor for the girl in Sutzkever’s textual content, whose determine is generally misplaced, a tough sketch in an affidavit.

Along with the {photograph} dossiers, there are two giant installations. In “Ponar/Ponary (Paneriai) Memorial” (2023), one room within the gallery is crammed with stones, which jogged my memory of the pebbles Jews go away on headstones. Projected on the wall is a pastoral view of bushes — it’s the view a sufferer would see in the event that they had been thrown into the ponary. The variety of rocks, it seems, has been fastidiously counted. The 75,000 stones characterize the Jews who had been buried on this killing area.

The opposite set up, “Sifters” (2023), paperwork a group of archaeologists who’re excavating the location of the Nice Synagogue of Vilna, which was vandalized by the Nazis after which absolutely destroyed by the Soviets within the Fifties. Kulikauskas shows his documentation in three picket sifters, the identical instruments used to filter artifacts from the rubble. Every {photograph}, which reveals the archaeologists sorting via outdated cash and title placards, seems like a relic itself. The large trays additionally evoke the darkroom trays Kulikauskas makes use of to develop his silver gelatin prints.

Although I Usually Overlook is kind of tranquil visually, the testimonials and histories that it finds are troublesome to abdomen. Regardless of this, it’s an necessary method of pairing trendy life with the disturbing actuality of the previous. Kulikauskas’s lack of Holocaust schooling mirrors a risk that’s nonetheless current in America, reminiscent of Florida Republicans’ try to ban all types of essential race principle, together with Jewish research, within the classroom. We are able to solely bear in mind historical past whether it is taught to us. With out schooling, the streets go silent, and the previous is sure to repeat itself.

Jonas Kulikauskas: I Usually Overlook continues on the Ronald H. Silverman Positive Arts Gallery, California State College (5151 State College Drive, College Hills, Los Angeles) via July 7. The exhibition was curated by the gallery.