Oh, how we wish we lived in a former Soviet state and also had the ability to travel back in time, so we could take in Ray Bartkus' exhibition "NEWS" that closed at Gallery Vartai in Vilnius, Lithuania last week.

His large-scale lambda prints depict the frightening, yet all-too-commonplace experience one might have while reading a newspaper or flipping on CNN. Bartkus conveys the horror, shock, ridiculousness, and, sometimes, humor of what we see on the evening news. Says Bartkus:

It was my first show in Vilnius since I left Lithuania 16 years ago. And, though in my opinion a lot of my stuff relates strongly to the American realities, and Lithuania still being very much, how to say, pastoral country, I was very surprised, that the ordinary viewers and the art critics dig the images. Therefore, I had to conclude how universal and widespread is this man-made reality upon which my jokes are based: images on TV screen, newspaper pages, advertising posters and internet sites. These are today's landscapes, still-lifes and nudes.

Feast on more juicy images...