Vilnius Gallery Weekend

Returning for the 7th time, Vilnius Gallery Weekend will be inviting art lovers to explore more than 30 art spaces, offering an empathic perspective throughout 8–11 September.

Join us and explore exhibitions presented at 4 museums of LNMA – the National Gallery of Art, the Radvila Palace Museum of Art, Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art as well as the Museum of Applied Arts and Design!

National Gallery of Art

8–11 September, visiting the exhibitions will be free

Sheets and Splashes. Leisure in 20th-21st Century Lithuanian Art

What do people do when there is nothing to do? When they are not constrained by the walls of their offices, when working hours are officially over and when they are not burdened with the responsibilities of living. This exhibition-retrospective presents the works of more than 100 artists and archival material, telling the story of how the forms of leisure time in our country have changed over the last century, which motifs and images have remained of interest to artists despite political and ideological changes.

Spatialities

Gintaras Kuginis’ Golden Section and Ša atelier 057 siena installations created especially for the exhibition Sheets and Splashes. Leisure in 20th-21st Century Lithuanian Art in the outdoor space of the National Gallery of Art.

By focusing on the individual creative elements of architecture – flatness and scale – the authors propose to rethink the concept of space and to look at it as an artificial labyrinth of meaning.

Sometimes Vėra Looks Like That. Photographs by Veronika Šleivytė (1906-1998)

Vėra Šleivytė, who was considered an odd painter of flowers in the Soviet era, is of interest to us today as a photographer whose images testify to her different roles: daughter, sister, artist, social activist, educator and lover. They also add to the history of the LGBTQ+ community. With her camera, Veronika Šleivytė explores both the world and herself. For the first time, more than 250 of Šleivytė’s photographs are on display – original and never-before-seen negatives from the artist’s archive.

Opening hours:

8 September – 12 (noon)–8 pm
9, 10 September – 11 am–7 pm
11 September – 11 am–5 pm
22 Konstitucijos Ave.

Radvila Palace Museum of Art

8–11 September, visiting the exhibitions will be free

Emilija Škarnulytė. Chambers of Radiance

Emilija Škarnulytė’s solo exhibition presents t1⁄2 – an audiovisual installation in an impressive format exploring posthumanist mythology. The title of the work refers to the terminology of nuclear physics and draws attention to the challenges of nuclear energy. Combining fiction and documentary, the artist visualises the traces of global human activity and invites a critical rethinking of the relationship between man and the Earth.

Protest Art: The Rebels of the Soviet Era

This is an exhibition in the spirit of resistance from the collection of jazz musician Vladimir Tarasov, donated to the museum. The exhibition features works by Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian and Estonian artists who worked in the Soviet Union between the 1960s and 1990s. They could be all characterised by their defiance of the ideological and aesthetic demands of the time and their quest for creative freedom. The exhibition is curated by Arūnas Gelūnas.

Opening hours:

8, 9, 10 September – 11 am–6 pm
11 September – 12 (noon)–5 pm
24 Vilniaus st.

Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of Art

8–11 September, visiting the exhibitions will be free

Contemporary African Art: Dreams and Realities of Identity

At the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum – the first exhibition of contemporary African art in the Baltic States, which tells about young African artists and their search for identity. In the latter part of the 20th century, the colonial era in Africa ended with independence wars and revolutions. Many countries declared independence in 1960, the so-called Year of Africa. The various multinational states that sprang up after decolonisation were mostly founded on a political rather than cultural basis and from then on, visual art has played an important role in the processes of societal change and the search for national identity. Just a couple of decades ago, many would have considered carved wooden masks and statuettes to be the embodiment of African art, but although such traditional art has contributed a lot to popularising the cultural heritage of the continent and has had a strong influence on the development of European modernism, contemporary forms of art have now finally come out of its shadow. The younger generation of African artists has set out on the path to finding new subjects for their art and new means of expression. The optimistic atmosphere of the liberation era in the final decades of the 20th century has given way to the realities of life: social, economic and ecological issues tied to certain demographic processes. The search for identity that has emerged parallel to the independence movements is also ramping up in the works of contemporary artists.

Today more than ever, there is a growing interest in contemporary African art and artists from the continent are getting recognition both at home and abroad. African art is now also coming to Lithuania. The organisers of the exhibition welcome you at the first exhibition of contemporary African art in the Baltic states and present the latest generation of artists. Fifteen artists representing six countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and South Africa – are raising issues regarding identity and migration, racism and tolerance, war and peace, that are relevant in the contemporary world. They fight against the widespread stereotypes of Africa being an “uncivilised” continent and are challenging the classical Western view, while creating and telling a new narrative about Africa.

Parallel Time

The idea was born in the autumn of 2018, when photographer Arūnas Baltėnas visited the USA and met New York–based artists Kęstutis Zapkus (b. 1938), Žilvinas Kempinas (b. 1969), Vytenis Jankūnus (b. 1961), and Julius Ludavičius (b. 1969). Later in Paris he also visited Paris-based artists Rūta Jusionytė (b. 1978) and the duo SetP Stanikas (Svajonė b. 1961 and Paulius b. 1962) and had a chat with them.
Visitors attentive to the contemporary art exhibitions will not find these artists a novelty. Yet this event brings into museum space not only artwork, but the people behind it, the individualities, life stories and careers of the famous artists living outside Lithuania. Among them, only Kęstutis Zapkus experienced an enforced exile, he left Lithuania at the age of six and received his art education abroad. Most of these artists, though, are voluntary experts of migration who chose to live in foreign countries seeking a broader context, attracted by the power of the international art centres, traditions and influences, inspired by the prospects different from their home country. Their art is now produced ‘between’ the two, ancestral and their current, worlds. The artists live in ‘parallel time’, both here and there, as once was put by Žilvinas Kempinas. Or ‘neither here, nor there’, but in their studio, according to Rūta Jusionytė.

Opening hours:

September 9, 10 d. 11 am–6 pm
September 11 d. 12 (noon)–5 pm
1 A. Goštauto st.

Museum of Applied Arts and Design

8–11 September, visiting the exhibitions will be free

The Invisibles. Historic Furniture from a Contemporary Design Perspective

The exhibition is an invitation to take a fresh look at the furniture and interior details stored in the museum collections, revealing to the viewer the value of these historical objects in a dialogue with contemporary design. The exceptional architecture of the exhibition, and the reconstruction of parts of the exhibits that have been lost in time, open up a multitude of ways and choices of appreciating historical objects, without losing sight of our current relationship to objects.

Lutum Magnum

The exhibition introduces the work of artists from different disciplines, the common material that unites their works – clay – and the different forms of its application. The exhibition is about the connection between clay and art in Lithuania and aims to reveal the diversity of the expression of clay’s materiality in contemporary art. From ceramic vessels to paintings, prints, installations and video works, clay has been used in many different ways by different generations of artists.

Opening hours:

8, 9, 10 September – 11 am–6 pm
11 September – 11 am–4 pm
3A Arsenalo st., Vilnius

Vilnius Gallery Weekend

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© 2022 The Lithuanian National Museum of Art. ISSN 1648-8881