Vadim Šamkov
10 Minutes Before the Big Bang

On 9 December (Tuesday) at 5:30 p.m., the Vilnius Photography Gallery (Stiklių St. 4, Vilnius; entrance from Didžioji St.) will open Vadim Šamkov’s solo photography exhibition ‘10 Minutes Before the Big Bang’.

The exhibition presents Šamkov’s photographic series ‘Packaged’ and ‘People at Work’, developed since 2017, which capture the states of museums, galleries, and exhibition halls in their pre-representational phase. The artist himself, being an exhibition designer and technician, is a direct participant in these spaces and moments – an observer and maker at the inception of a museum display or exhibition. What appears to him as everyday routine and mechanical action may, to an outsider, resemble a multitude of yet-unarticulated and unvisualised messages. Yet this immediacy and daily routine do not render Šamkov’s gaze indifferent; instead, they allow him to pause calmly and capture the small, captivating nuances within the continuous flow – rhythms of light and shadow, anticipatory hints of events, and chance-formed mise-en-scènes. Looking at the black-and-white photographs, one recognises an insider’s view: fragments of a whole, suspended by someone who moves within this environment every day. As Šamkov himself has said, ‘The work is slow and tedious.’ Still, for viewers unacquainted with this daily reality, the photographs can at least metonymically reveal the complex, multilayered processes involved in setting up exhibitions and in searching for the final, most refined form of presenting artworks. In ‘10 Minutes Before the Big Bang’, the artist exposes and lays bare what is usually unseen – the long, meticulous work that ultimately enables audiences to be invited into exhibition spaces.

                                                                                    --- GyS

The exhibition runs until 17 January 2026.

The activities of the Lithuanian Photographers Association are funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and supported by the Media Support Fund.

Vilnius Photography Gallery opening hours
Tue–Fri 12:00–18:00; Sat 12:00–16:00

Vadim Šamkov. From the series ‘People at Work’, ‘Packaged’