Vytautas Pletkus PLACEBOS

The unplanned yet carefully constructed images show colourful fairs, celebratory installations, inventive plastic sculptures and the gloomy humour of daily life. “Placebai” was started in 2013 and it took V. Pletkus to various areas of Lithuania – city outskirts, private backyards, farmsteads and even cemeteries. The artist notes: “I observe lustrous rocks, plastic flower blossoms, fancy-shaped jars, toys, Christmas decorations. It’s all a strange sight, but maybe just for me? We each play in our own sandbox, obeying rules we saw elsewhere – in the sandboxes of neighbours, relatives, casual acquaintances. Fences made from colourful stones, rugs, bathroom tiles… why are they here, in the cemetery? What do they mean? What message – pain, respect, memory – do they convey?”.  

A surprising harmony of banality, tastelessness and sometimes originality greets us in the festive details and the kitsch of routine, which the photo artist sees as a possible cure rather than just only an empty simulacrum of culture. The primitive knick-knackery might seem worthless at first sight, however it all acts as a placebo for the owners to get through the symptoms of material and spiritual poverty. One-sided beauty is a shelter from the daily blues – it’s easy to consume and it sets the spectator free from thinking, questioning and interpreting. By imitating the aesthetics of art, the placebo acquires content and volume and, after resonating with the inner world of a “patient”, it doesn’t heal the actual reality but it operates as a cover, modifying the perception of the “patient” up to a point when living becomes easier (if you believe this placebo works).

Milda Kiaušaitė