From a Critique of the Soviet System to a Critique of Anthropocentrism
From a Critique of the Soviet System to a Critique of Anthropocentrism

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the creative work of several young Lithuanian painters who debuted in the late 1970s and created an informal group they called Penketas, or The Five. These ‘bad boys’ tested their era’s boundaries of official norms of art and the limits of decency. Their paintings were distinctly detached, highly self-reflexive and inter-iconic. This article presents the creative work of The Five in an international context, but also reveals new contemporary relevance, demonstrating that the group’s strategies of transgression and subversion might be understood today as something more than a reaction to the Soviet policy of ‘humanising’ art.

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