By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
In a concession to the computer age and digital photography, Algimantas Kezys, who worked strictly in black-and-white for almost 40 years, in 2000 "felt the time has come to try my hand at color."
He was afraid the book on angels would prove to be "another blind alley for me because others' ideas never work for me. She lived secluded in the woods. When I saw those folk art sculptures," however, Kezys knew this project would be the exception to his rule.
The battery on his camera was dead, however, and he had failed to bring extras. Then he discovered a button that would operate his shuttle manually.
Perhaps an angel intervened.
In fact, he admitted in a phone interview with the Dowagiac Daily News Friday, the former Jesuit priest who fled his native Lithuania in 1950 feels "jittery" because of critical backlash to colorizing and accusations that he "abandoned a freeway for a path in the woods" by following the purity of his artistic vision rather than making commercial success his priority.
Reaction to his colorized photographs is reminiscent of the furor which ensued in folk music circles when Bob Dylan plugged his guitar into an amplifier.
The Dowagiac Dogwood Fine Arts Festival Committee, in association with Dr. Matthew and Beth Cripe and John A. and Nancy C. Vylonis, present a lecture and reception to view Kezys' photography exhibition next Monday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the theater of the Dale A. Lyons Building on Southwestern Michigan College's Dowagiac campus.
SMC gallery hours May 11-15 are Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, 7 to 9 p.m.
That Kezys is in photography at all is by "sheer accident." He is sensitive to the fact that he never had any formal photography training. "I'm a completely self-made man" who has gone on to publish more than 20 books. As a student he was given an assignment in the summer at a camp for kids to show them how to take pictures. "I was excited about the idea," he said, "and before I knew it, I was hooked."
Digital colorization marks a distinct third phase in Kezys' evolution.
His artist's statement of 1972 says, "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 that act as transmitters of his thoughts, feelings and vision to another individual.
Kezys changed his style in 1990 with publication of "Doubleprints."
Kezys said in that phase he concentrated on creating a "symbol of reality" rather than documenting something that was 100-percent true to reality. He compares it to holy scripture. "We're so fundamentalist in what it says, then we found out that it's not history in the sense we write it. They wrote in a symbolic language that expresses a truth, but not a factual truth." He said symbols transmit higher, more abstract ideals.
Born in Lithuania in 1928, he fled to the West prior to Soviet occupation of his homeland and came to the United States in 1950.
In 1956 he received a master's degree in philosophy he "never uses" 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 chairman of the board of the Lithuanian Library Press in Chicago. He directed the Lithuanian Youth Center in Chicago from 1974 to 1977.
Kezys' first exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago came in 1965. He has since exhibited in Washington, D.C., at the gallery of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), City Hall of Vilnius, Lithuania, and the Cultural Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
His gallery represents Lithuanian artists worldwide. He publishes reviews, catalogs and books on art, religion and photography. He prepares a new art show every two weeks.