This weekend, the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center "Litexpo" will become the largest art gallery in Lithuania. 12 art galleries and institutions, 70 artists from 320 countries of the world will be located in the center's three main halls and outside - on an area of 18 thousand square meters. The organizers and curators of the program of the international contemporary art fair "ArtVilnius'22" have prepared a program for the visitors of the fair, the most important highlights of which are installation and sculpture genres and ecology, the guest of the fair - Ukraine.
How not to get lost in ArtVilnius'22 art labyrinths? What is important and necessary to see? Which artists from Lithuania and other countries should I get to know? The following navigational tips may help you.
Look for galleries in halls 5 and 3
The main gallery program of ArtVilnius'22 and the Litexpo stands will be located in halls 5 and 3. There, visitors, art collectors and buyers will be waiting for the fair's antiques, Okapi gallery (Estonia), Māksla XO (Latvija), "Galerie Nivet-Carzon" (France), "Meno parkas" gallery of the Lithuanian artists' union, "Baroti" (KADS), "Meno niša", "The Rooster gallery", "Galerija Kristina Norvilaitė", "Terra Recognita" and others, both participating in the fair for the first time - "Galerie Intershop" (Germany), Latvian gallery "Look!", Ministry of Art from Kaunas and Tumos gallery from Vilnius.
The organizers of "ArtVilnius'22" are also happy with a large group of regional galleries. Panevėžys city art gallery and LDS gallery "Galerija XX", Dusetė art gallery, Molėtai art gallery, Palanga "Ramybės Galerija", Šiauliai LDS gallery "S_in.", VDA Telšiai art gallery, "Vilkamirgė" gallery from Ukmergė will take part. The program of Ukrainian galleries will be represented by: "Tsekh" (Kyiv | Vilnius), "Ya Gallery" from Lviv, "Art14" and "Ra Gallery" from Kyiv, "Shcherbenko Art Center" from Kyiv and "The Naked Room", representing Ukraine at the 59th Venice Biennale this year. .
You can choose and buy the works you like from the fair in advance in the electronic catalog of the fair participants Artvilnius.com/lt/katalogas. You can save the selected works and download them to your e-mail. Those who will not be able to come to the fair will have the opportunity to view the works of art and enter the galleries after the fair in an interactive 3D tour.
In Hall 4 - "Fevering Bodies"
This year, contemporary art curator and writer Valentinas Klimašauskas, who organized the Project Zone in Hall 4 of ArtVilnius, focused on the topic of ecology. The joint project "Hot Bodies" transformed the project area into an open and engaging "city within a city" ecosystem. It presents the work of the "Queer" feminist Natalia LL (1937-2022) of the Krakow Museum of Contemporary Art MOCAK, and the stage installation "Sužeistas vējas" by the artist Robert Narkaus, currently representing Lithuania at the Venice Art Biennale, and the special partner of "ArtVilnius'22" Lewben "The group exhibition "Do octopuses dream of people?" prepared by the foundation "Lewben Art Foundation", which also includes the sculpture "Fat Car" by one of the most famous Austrian artists, Erwin Wurm, which explores the relationship between power, wealth and body weight.
You must also see Jonas Mekos' diary "365 Days", which is presented by the Jonas Mekos Center for Visual Arts, as well as a program of video films dedicated to ecology and Ukraine. In the "Studies" project, twelve art doctoral students of the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts will present parts of their practical research. Artists Dans Aleksa, Madeleine Andersson (Sweden), Anna KE (Sakartvel) and Florian Meisenberg (Germany), Oleksiy Radinski (Ukraine) and Marija Žiemytė will present their individual projects.
A trail of sculptures, installations and performances will be laid out indoors and outdoors
The international exhibition of sculptures, installations and performances "Takas" has become a tradition in the fair spaces. Curator of the exhibition, artist, head of the VDA Sculpture Department doc. Vytenis Burokas presents the projects of 29 individual artists.
Sculptures by Jonas Aničs, Tauros Kensmins, Matas Janušonis, Nerijas Ermins, Rytis Urbanskas, Rafal Piesliaks will be placed outside near the Litexpo center. This year, the textile artist Monika Grašienė-Žaltė brings the visitors of the fair back to the balcony of the exhibition center, where her impressively large work speaks about today's current affairs. More artists will react to world events - Žygymantas Augustinas, Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, Sergei Beloaki and others.
Monika Dirsytė, the favorite of the visitors of the fair, will show her new work "Axis Code", which she will perform together with the opera soloist Agne Sabulyte. It will be an eight-hour dialogue on the human axis on Friday and Saturday. The performance will take place in the Litexpo field, at the entrance to the halls.
Election of the best
As every year, during "ArtVilnius'22" there will be a selection of the best participants of the fair, who will be chosen by an international commission, which includes art critic, photographer, organizer and participant of international and national art projects, exhibitions, promotions Virginijus Kinčinaitis, curator of the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Monika Kozioł , curator of the "ArtVilnius'22" project area, art critic and writer Valentinas Klimašauskas, chairman of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Art Creators Union, head of the cultural complex SODAS 2123 Danutė Gambickaitė, art curator and researcher of visual studies Lesia Kulchynska from Ukraine.
The awards ceremony will take place on October 7, at 18 p.m., in hall 5 of Litexpo, located in the LRT studio. The 7 best galleries of ArtVilnius'22, the best artist of ArtVilnius'22, the best sculpture/installation of ArtVilnius'22, the best young artist of ArtVilnius'22 (patrons of the fair, prize of Cobalt law firm) will be announced here. On Sunday evening, the "Viewer's Choice Gallery" and "Viewer's Choice Artist of Ukraine" will be awarded, and they will receive the Wolfs Engelman Prize.
For overnighters
On Friday evening, when the doors of "Litexpo" close, visitors are invited to the city of Vilnius, where the art festival for night owls "Art After Hours" will be held. The doors of Vilnius art galleries, art institutions and art spaces will be opened for the festival, there will be meetings with creators, gallerists, tours of exhibitions with art critics, and even performative Tarot card readings.
Art After Hours will feature 14 galleries and art spaces, 80 artists and 9 events (meetings with artists, tours of exhibitions, performances and exhibition openings). Guests of galleries and museums are invited to stay overnight until 23 p.m.
Excursions and tickets
Visitors are invited to purchase tickets to "ArtVilnius'22" on the "Bilietai.lt" portal. The organizers recommend to avoid queues and buy electronic tickets in advance, which will be more expensive on the days of the fair. The price of a one-day ticket before the event is EUR 14 (during the event - EUR 15), a two-day ticket is EUR 22. On October 7, Friday, "ArtVilnius'22" will be open to visitors with tickets from 14:20 to 11.30:20.00, on Saturday - from 11.30:18.00 to 22:30. and on Sunday - from XNUMX:XNUMX a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m. ArtVilnius'XNUMX continues the highly popular tours of the fair with art experts who will professionally help navigate the halls and stands of the event and introduce visitors and art buyers to the most important highlights of the fair. The price of a day ticket with an excursion is EUR XNUMX.
