The Lithuanian National Museum of Art opens a season of autumnal events, prepared to welcome culture enthusiasts back in towns. The new season programme presents exhibitions and events enticing to venture into the spaces of art, and after holidays, get reloaded with fresh ideas and impressions. Art lovers will be treated to some rarely exhibited art pieces from the collections of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and from foreign art institutions.
The programme of the autumn 2023 incudes18 exhibitions across different LNMA’s divisions in Vilnius, Klaipėda and Palanga, also at other museums in Lithuania and abroad. The exhibitions will be accompanied by educational evolutions, creative workshops, scientific conferences. All of the temporary exhibitions can be viewed by visitors independently, there are also guided tours available for each one.
‘We have put together an impressive autumn programme in four Lithuanian towns. Total three grand exhibitions will celebrate the 700th anniversary of Vilnius, the duo Pakui Hardware, selected to represent Lithuania at the Venice Biennial next year, appears this autumn in Vilnius with a solo exhibition; we carry on our mission of introducing society into migrating Lithuanian art and the evacuated art treasures of the Ukrainian museums, and to introduce the collection of our museum for the public of Lithuanian regions – as well as at prestigious museums abroad. Thus, it will certainly be time of discoveries and inspirations,’ Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, director general of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, shares his enthusiasm about the coming autumn exhibition programme.
‘I am happy with the successful international presentations the museum’s collections are receiving. The autumn season on the international stage begins at one of the major European exhibition venues, Haus del Kunst in Munich. The group exhibition Inside Other Spaces. Immersive Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976 opening at the Haus del Kunst from August 8, brings into focus the artwork by Aleksandra Kašuba. In October, we open an exhibition at the contemporary art museum MOCAK in Cracow. The exhibition of South Korean photography, still on in Vilnius this autumn is a strong addition to the season’s art experience opportunities. I extend my gratitude to the ambassadors of the Republic of Lithuania, to the Lithuanian Institute for Culture and the cultural attachés, and to our foreign partners for helping this happen,’ A. Gelūnas shares the plans of the museum.
General director of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Photo: Gintarė Grigėnaitė
The face of 700-year-old Vilnius
The museum continues events celebrating 700th anniversary of Vilnius. This autumn, three exhibitions and a scientific conference are dedicated to the jubilee of the capital. An exhibition A Foreigner Turned Native: the Multifaceted Artistic Vilniusopening 10 October will be accompanied by a three-day conference dedicated to the discussion of foreigners’ contribution to the visual culture of Lithuania.
November will see another exhibition celebrating the birthday of Vilnius open at the Picture Gallery, The Uncharted World of Old Books: The Heritage of the Nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Vilnius Libraries. The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vilnius University Library, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania will present, for the first time, in one location the legacy of the libraries amassed by the nobility of the GDL.
The National Gallery of Art of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art 9 November opens an international exhibition Vilnius-Wilno-Vilne in Art. 1918–1948, put together by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the Cracow National Museum of Art. The event celebrates 700 years of Vilnius history. The exhibition and the catalogue is be the first-ever joint presentation of materials kept by the Lithuanian and Polish memory institutions, artistic documents, paintings, graphic works, artistic photography, sculpture and their reproductions evoking war-and-early-postwar Vilnius.
In Vilnius before Venice
This late October, the Museum of Applied Arts and Design will host a solo exhibition Inflammation by the internationally acclaimed contemporary art duo Pakui Hardware (Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda). Making their appearance in Lithuania after a long pause, the artists, together with Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (1933–2007) will represent Lithuania at the 2024 Venice Biennale. This Vilnius exhibition will be an introduction into the future pavilion. Their new large scale kinetic exhibition-installation Inflammation explores the fevers that make the people and the world shiver.
Ugnius Gelguda and Neringa Černiauskaitė. Photo: Arūnas Baltėnas
Lithuanian and world art in autumnal Vilnius
The divisions of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art based in the capital – the National Gallery of Art, the Radvila Palace Museum of Art, the Museum of Applied Arts and Design, Vilnius Picture Gallery, Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum are readying to open even 12 exhibitions this autumn.
The National Gallery of Art starts September with Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas’ installation The Futurity Island, relocated from Juodkrantė. The Radvila Palace Museum of Art, jointly with the Mental Health Festival Connections (Ryšiai), opens a new exhibition Out of Touch. The Museum of Applied Arts and Design will host artwork of the competitors for the Young Designer Prize 2023.
In October, visitors to the National Gallery of Art will be offered an exhibition JCDecaux Prize held together with the Contemporary Art Centre.
This November the Radvila Palace Museum of Art will host an exhibition by a husband-and-wife team, the New York-based artists Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. Originally from Lviv and Voronezh, the Kopystiansky emigrated to the West in 1988 to reach international acclaim. Their exhibition of conceptual pieces and videoart will be accompanied by a catalogue, also produced by the artists.
The Museum of Applied Arts and Design will present the artwork by the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian participants of the 15th – and the final – competition The Young Painter’s Prize. As customary, the first prize-winner will enter the collection of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.
Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum continues to repatriate to the scene – and discourse – of Lithuanian art, the Lithuanian artists who worked or work outside their home country. This October the museum opens an exhibition of Žibuntas Mikšys (1923–2013), a graphic artist who lived and worked in Paris. The exhibition will present the artist’s work and milieu, as well as a publication dedicated to the art by Žibuntas Mikšys.
This December the Radvila Palace Museum of Art intends to treat its visitors to two masterpieces of painting by a celebrated 17th-century Dutch portrait master Frans Hals: Evangelist St Luke and Evangelist St Matthew. The paintings have been evacuated by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art from the Odesa Museum of Eastern and Western Art in Ukraine. These masterpieces belong to the artist’s series Four Evangelists created in 1625, and over centuries scattered all over the world. To see these portraits, witnesses of Hals’ mastery, visitors will be invited into a special exhibiting space. An audiovisual narrative created by contemporary stage directors, set designers, illustrators and composers will evoke the artist’s epoch, his biography and introduce his oeuvre.
By the end of the year, the Radvila Palace Museum of Art will open exhibitions by Audrius Novickas and Algirdas Šeškus.
Radvila Palace Museum of Art. Photo: Gintarė Grigėnaitė
What’s new this autumn at the coastal divisions of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art
The autumn programme embraces four exhibitions in coastal venues, Palanga Amber Museum, Pranas Domšaitis Gallery in Klaipėda.
In September, the Amber Museum will open an exhibition Amber Flows Through Our Veins . It will take an ironic perspective on the connection between amber and the Lithuanian identity shaped in the 20th century. Visitors will see some unexpected kitsch exhibits and get a chance to consider the political aspects in the perception of amber and its function in the construction of national identity.
Pranas Domšaitis Gallery in Klaipėda opens two new exhibitions. September will see the opening of the international exhibition Karl Eulenstein (1892–1981). Returning to Klaipėda. It is the eleventh event in cooperation between the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the East Prussian state museum in Germany promoting the artistic heritage of East Prussia. In October, the gallery opens the exhibition Witnesses of the Mundane. Still Lifes Like a re(de)construction of the Period of selected still-life paintings from the 2nd half of the 20th c. from the collections of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Before the end of the year, the gallery has plans to renew the permanent exhibition of Pranas Domšaitis.
The Lithuanian National Museum of Art events in Lithuanian regions
The museum continues its mission of bringing the national or international museum-held exhibitions of quality to people in different regions of Lithuania. The Amber from the Depths, hosted this summer by the Amber Museum in Palanga, will be travel to the library of Nida until October.
The regional Culture Centre of Šalčininkai will host this October an exhibition dedicated specially for this district. The event will revisit and sum up one of the first expeditions by the museum to Šalčininkai district and present the objects of the region’s ethnic culture from the 2nd half of the 19th through the 1st half of the 20th century. On display will be the implements of everyday, textiles with patterns typical of Šalčininkai, photographs, drawings and technical drawings of the local farmsteads, landscape and architecture.
The educational-gastronomic meetings of the ‘Migrating Museum’ will start this October at the Pamario Gallery in Juodkrantė. The locals and visitors to Neringa will be able to take part in weekly lectures, tours and creative events, and to familiarize with art pieces of the best collections of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. A warming touch to the space of dialogue will be added by culinary creations from the locals of Neringa.
Adomas Varnas. Autumn. St. James Church in Vilnius
Come for inspiration to the venues of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art
This summer’s research carried out by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and Mindletic shows that visits to museums improve emotional heath and inspire new ideas. As days get shorter, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art invites everyone to take care of their emotional and intellectual state. All information on current and upcoming exhibitions, scientific conferences, events and educational activities is posted on the museum’s website and can be accessed here: www.lndm.lt. You can also receive personal updates to your e-mail box by subscribing to the museum newsletter.
Palanga Amber Museum. Photo: Gintarė Grigėnaitė
