Žilvinas Landzbergas exhibition at the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery invites to unlock the rooms of childhood

Exhibition opening at 6 pm Thursday, 18 June, 2026

Thursday, 18th June, the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art opened Žilvinas Landzbergas’s exhibition Sister tell me your name. The exhibition turns the gallery spaces into a home of an extended nuclear family, and invites viewers to look at the world with the eyes of a small girl.    

 

 “The art by Žilvinas Landzbergas is always intriguing and full of surprises,” says Skaistė Marčienė, director of the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA. “Each exhibition of his conjures up a unique miniature world which links different aspects – the image and space, the narrative and experience. This exhibition is mostly about experience: it invites not just look, but immerse into the artist-created environment, allow it sink in and unlock some personal meanings in it.”  

 

Lock code to the family story  

 

According to the exhibition curator Anders Kreuger, Landzbergas in this exhibition assumes an unexpected role to reveal himself, that of “an artist-designer – who gives form to everyday life. Having in mind the nature of Landzbergas’s art, this concept from the Lithuanian twentieth century still feels relevant. The artist works with, for and through other people. He and his work need the viewers and participants to come alive. Landzbergas clearly plays with this interaction.” 

Visitors are invited to step into a space of the mundane, made up up by the artist. It is visually and emotionally enhanced to recall a film set, theatre stage, or a curiosity cabinet. However, this space will not be entered directly – at the museum’s reception, visitors will be given a lock code, as if they are invited to someone’s private place. But a home needs tenants, and an exhibition – visitors. The artist consciously explores this dependence creating an inclusive space, where visitors are invited not only to observe, but become part of the story.  

Upon entering the exhibition room, guests will see something of a domestic world – separate areas of the family members, the rooms of the father, mother, grandmother and children are characterized by the atmosphere and detail. The exhibition resembles of a fragmented puzzle which uses abstract form to reach to the elusive roots of human identity. It weaves together names, smells, tactile experiences, works, places and feelings into a tapestry of experience where everything takes place simultaneously and becomes part of personal existence.  

 

 

The right to feel safe   

 

Landzbergas says he created Sister tell me your name to emulate the treasure box usually kept by young girls. Other people are occasionally allowed to take a look at them, if with due respect and politeness. The same applies to this display. This encourages to contemplate the theme of vulnerability and the human right to feel safe. The set up of the exhibition invites to try out a round soft platform, from this position visitors realize they are looking at this family space from the daughter’s perspective. The exhibition invites to appreciate the family day-off and mundane aesthetics, reminding also that at the time of war it cannot be taken for granted or guaranteed.  

 

Walking the exhibition platforms as the corridors of a forgotten home, visitors are finally led into an elegant garden where the artist has installed a hothouse tower. This enhances the surrealist illusion of a home in a museum even further, opening yet another facet and the world conjured up by the exhibition.  

 

The creator of immersive experiences and events accompanying the exhibition   

 

Žilvinas Landzbergas, born in 1979, is a renowned Lithuanian artist. He represented his country at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and has participated in many other international exhibitions, such as the São Paulo and Riga biennials in 2018. Trained as a sculptor at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, where he also teaches, and at the independent artists’ institute De Ateliers in Amsterdam, he is best known for his comprehensive installations. These typically combine sculptures and paintings and drawings, and sometimes also moving-image works, into immersive but always distinctly personal experiences for diverse audiences. Landzbergas also curates exhibitions with other artists. In 2011–2013 he ran his own exhibition space in Vilnius, Malonioji 6. He is represented by Meno parkas in Kaunas. 

 

Landzbergas’s exhibition will run at the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery until 28th February, 2027. It will be accompanied by tours and educational events. Please visit the museum website and social media for detailed information.  

 

Exhibition visitors will have an opportunity to explore the same themes in a cinema hall. Together with a special film programme accompanying Sister tell me your name, the documentary festival Inconvenient Films, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, returns to Klaipėda after a year’s break. In response to the exhibition’s themes of family, identity, origin and human relations, the festival curators have selected three documentaries. They will be screened on the 5th – 25th October.  

 

 

Curator: Anders Kreuger

Editor: Ilona Čiužauskaitė

Design: Eglė Kirlytė

 

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33 Liepu st, LT-92145, Klaipėda, Lithuania
+370 46 410 412
domsaicio.galerija@lndm.lt

See also

Exhibition

Sister tell me your name