This year, Vilnius gallery "Meno niša" is celebrating its 20th birthday. The year-long festive exhibition program is crowned from December 10. The international exhibition "XX" of 20 artists will be held in the VDA exhibition halls "Titanikas".
Vilnius gallery "Meno niša" located at the beginning of J. Basanavičiaus Street was founded in 2002. The founders of the gallery are Diana Stomienė, head of "Meno niša", president of the Association of Lithuanian Art Gallerists and head of the art fair "ArtVilnius" and famous metal artist Marytė Dominaitė-Gurevičienė. Art critic Sonata Baliuckaitė is the curator of the gallery for many years.
Over 20 years, hundreds of exhibitions have been organized in Lithuania and abroad, among which the laureates of the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize have been presented, and the gallery has discovered young talented Lithuanian and foreign creators and their projects. The gallery is one of several Lithuanian galleries that actively participate and present their artists at international art fairs in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Lithuania, etc.). In 2023, the newest project of the "Meno niša" gallery "Vilnius Performance Art Biennale" will start, it is one of the 7 project laureates that won Vilnius city municipalities and the competition announced by "GO Vilnius" dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Vilnius.
"During its long history, the gallery refined its content, updated the art program, and entered the international art market. We are very grateful to everyone who contributed and helped us grow together while creating the face of the gallery, it is a long way to find the content of the gallery, so it is very important for us to invite the gallery's artists, curators, art researchers, supporters, friends and thank them for 20 years together", said the gallery manager D. Stomienė.
According to the manager of the gallery, VDA exhibition halls were chosen for the "Titanikas" anniversary exhibition not only because of the space, because in the chamber environment of "Meno niša" this large group of artists would no longer fit. "The artists presented by the gallery and the Meno Niša team studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, so returning to the academy is emotionally important for every exhibitor and member of the gallery," emphasized D. Stomienė, head of Meno Niša.
On the occasion of her birthday, S. Baliuckaitė, the curator of the "XX" exhibition, symbolically invited 20 artists from Lithuania and abroad who held exhibitions in the "Meno Niša" gallery, including those who took part in the very first "Meno Niša" exhibition "Golden Art" in 2002, and those , who held their first solo exhibitions.
The exhibition "XX" consists of two parts: some artists reflect on the theme of the first exhibition "Golden Art", discuss the value of art, the categories of artist evaluation and what is valuable to artists in their work, what inspires them and what they transmit through their work. We selected the works of other artists in order to present the creator himself, what he created during the 20-year history of the gallery and now.
Artists of different generations and different fields will meet at the XX exhibition: painters, sculptors, creators of interdisciplinary art. Each artist, their work, exhibition openings created the face of "Art niche", it is the artists who are the calling card of the gallery, the identity formed by bright, ambitious and promising creators. The "XX" exhibition will be diverse, just like the gallery's 20-year history," said curator S. Baliuckaitė.
The exhibition will present the latest works, most of them specially created for the exhibition: winners of the National Prize Rūta Katiliūtė, Vladimir Tarasov and Gintaras Makarevičius, one of the founders of the gallery Marytė Dominaitė, painters Jolanta Kyzikaitė, Algirdas and Remigijus Gataveckai, Monika Plentauskaitė, Andris Vītoliņš (Latvija), Maarit Murka (Estonia), Konstantinas Gaitanži, Gustas Jagminas, video art and installations will be presented by Rimas Sakalauskas, Paulius Šliaupa, Tessa Langveld (Holland), Siebe Thijs (Belgium) Jurgis Tarabilda, Linas Blažiūnas, Marius Jonutis, Kęstutis Svirnelis, sculptures will be shown by Matas Janušonis, Mykolas Sauka, performance by Monika Dirsytė.
The exhibition "XX" will be held in the VDA exhibition halls "Titanikas" (Maironio st. 3, Vilnius) from December 10 to January 14. Exhibition opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday from 12:18 to XNUMX:XNUMX.
