Vytautas Kumža

Vytautas Kumza (b. 1992) is Lithuanian-born, Amsterdam-based photographer of the younger generation. In 2017 he graduated in Fine-art photography from Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He has held several solo shows in Lithuania and Netherlands, participated in group shows in Lithuania, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Greece, Czech Republic. His artworks were presented in international art fairs and photography festivals.

He is winner of Sybren Hellinga Kunstprijs and Emerging Artist Stipendium from Mondriaan Fonds, also in 2019 Vytautas got a grant from Lithuanian Council for Culture. Young photographer also won Ron Mandos Photo Talent Award and HvA photographer in Residence award. He was nominated for Rabobank Dutch National Photographic Portrait Talent prize, for Riga Photography Biennal award, StartPoint Prize 2017 and for European Photography Prize.
Artist focuses on interventions in everyday situations that result in the manipulation of the physical, temporal and aesthetic laws of the subjects within his images. These simulations create a space of contemporaneity in which the beholder can only linger and experience the present moment. By provoking the performativity of depth and surface both in the three-dimensional elements of his displays casting shadow on the flat photographs, and in the misleading interplay of background and foreground within images, the installations beckon: “Look. Yes, look again, and longer this time.” Artist tries to dismantle the logic of the objects so as to be able to rebuild them in different ways using sculpture and photography. Kumža makes assemblies oscillating between absurdity, encryption, transcription and inefficient functionality, sometimes revealing the banality of the genre.

Photo: Vytautas Kumža by Visvaldas Morkevičius