From September 16 to October 25, 2026, the Museum of Photography (Vilniaus St. 140, Šiauliai) will host the exhibition Virgilijus Šonta. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

In the spring and early summer of this year, at the National Art Gallery of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the curators of the exhibition, Margarita Matulytė and Gintaras Česonis, presented the first retrospective exhibition of Virgilijus Šonta’s creative work of exceptional scope. It provides an opportunity to take a look at the mysterious personality of a particularly sensitive artist with a dramatic fate. Later, parts of the exhibition were displayed at Kaunas Photography Gallery, and from there they are coming to Šiauliai, to the Photography Museum. The curators organised the exhibition in collaboration with the artist’s family and Kaunas Photography Gallery. For the first time, the exhibition brings together works from all major collections, including a significant part of the Photography Museum’s collection.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the chorus of Bob Dylan’s song “Blowin’ in the Wind”, written in 1962. The song that raises existential and civic issues became an anthem for civil rights activists. Its lyrics remind us that the answers to the most important questions are often neither simple nor definitive – they remain lingering in history, memory, and personal experiences.

Photographer Virgilijus Šonta lived in a society whose social norms were dictated by the repressive Soviet system. In his work, the artist explored everyday life, tested the sustainability of institutional and personal boundaries, and looked for ways to remain true to himself under ideological pressure conditions. His path of life and creative work stretched between the demands of official institutions and individual choices, between reticence, concealed identity, and the pursuit of inner freedom.

The Soviet system led to many of Šonta’s unspoken thoughts and mysteries. The photographer’s biography is shrouded in unanswered questions, the shadow of the KGB, a complicated relationship with his identity, and a tragic end of his life – the artist was murdered at the age of forty.

Despite his short life, Virgilijus Šonta left behind a large and diverse body of work. His photographs are characterized by a melancholic mood, sensitive observation of people, an archaic connection with nature, and an eccentric relationship with the environment. The artist’s works blend a documentary perspective with experimental techniques and a subtle photographic aesthetic.

Šonta remains a paradoxical, unpredictable, and fully unsolvable author. His work not only testifies to the human condition during the Soviet era but also raises universal questions about freedom, identity, loneliness, social norms, and the individual’s resistance to the system.

The retrospective and its accompanying catalogue highlighted key guidelines of the artist’s creative work and biography: the expression of analogue photography, the beginning of the artist’s studies and creative work at Kaunas Polytechnic Institute, involvement in the activities of the Lithuanian Photographers Association, the KGB backdrop that accompanied his life, his concealed LGBTQ+ identity, the US citizenship, and his travels to the country that he considered his own.

The exhibition invites visitors to view Virgilijus Šonta’s work as a multifaceted story of an artist, an era, and personal freedom. His life is full of secrets, puzzles, and hints hidden between the lines. The answers to many questions, just like in Bob Dylan’s song, are still blowing in the wind.

Prepared on the basis of the text by Margarita Matulytė and information from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

Works and documents for the exhibition at the Lithuanian National Art Gallery were lent by: Miglė Šontaitė-Petkevičienė and Vidonija Šontienė, Lithuanian Photographers Association, the Photography Museum (a division of Šiauliai Aušra Museum), Romualdas Požerskis, Arvydas Žalpys, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuanian Central State Archives, Lithuanian Special Archives.

Curators:
Margarita Matulytė
Gintaras Česonis

Graphic designer (of the exhibition in Kaunas and Šiauliai): Inga Navickaitė Drąsutė

Organisers in Šiauliai:
The Photography Museum, the division of Šiauliai Aušra Museum
Kaunas Photography Gallery
Lithuanian National Museum of Art / National Art Gallery