Art and ecology, installation and sculpture - these are the most important things today in Vilnius, the center of exhibitions and congresses.Litexpo", the highlights of the 13th international contemporary art fair "ArtVilnius'22", which has started. Running from Friday to Sunday event 70 art galleries and institutions, 320 artists from 18 countries of the world will present to visitors. The guest of this year's fair is Ukraine and its artists.
Traditionally, ArtVilnius'22 will present a wide program of galleries, private international art collections, installation, sculpture and performance exhibition "Takas", meetings with creators, discussions, excursions accompanied by art critics and architects will take place. "Our art fair is a living organism, the program is constantly changing," said Diana Stomienė, head of the fair, president of the Association of Lithuanian Art Gallerists, at the press conference held on Friday morning. - This year is marked by war, so we invited Ukraine to become a special guest of the fair. The most important thing is that everything worked out, Ukrainian artists and their works are in Vilnius and their program can be seen not only in the galleries, but also in the project area and in the program of the exhibition "Takas".
D. Stomienė noted that this year ArtVilnius'22 has more galleries from the regions than ever before. "We believe that it is important for our galleries to grow and develop next to international galleries," said the art director of the fair, who reminded of the equally important functions of the fair in activating the art market, educating visitors, organizing cultural exchanges, creating networking and attracting art collectors.
Galleries program
The main gallery program of "ArtVilnius'22" and stands at the fair are located in halls 5 and 3. In them, visitors, art collectors and buyers will find the fair's antiques, galleries "Okapi" (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". Galerie Intershop (Germany), Latvian gallery "Look!", Ministry of Art from Kaunas and Tumos Gallery from Vilnius are participating in the fair for the first time.
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 in the fair.
Project area
Contemporary art curator and writer Valentinas Klimašauskas, who organized the "ArtVilnius'22" Project Zone, focused on the theme of ecology. "The idea of the project zone is to create an event, a space that would connect artists, institutions, fair guests into one ecosystem, and would be open to visitors and to each other. Ecology at this year's exhibition reflects the current context of a feverish world. Open information systems, constant circulation of information, pandemic, war are changing our understanding of ecology", said the Project Zone curator at the press conference.
The project area, this year named "Heating Bodies", will tell stories about human, animal, planetary, performative, information system and other bodies. "These are important, intertwined and sometimes even very difficult topics," said the curator.
The joint project "Heating Bodies" involves the Krakow Museum of Contemporary Art MOCAK, the Lewben Art Foundation, Contemporary Art Center, Jonas Mekos Visual Arts Center and art doctoral students of the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, artists Danas Aleksa (Lithuania), Madeleine Andersson (Sweden), Anna KE (Sakartvel) and Florian Meisenberg (Germany), Oleksiy Radinski (Ukraine), Marija Žiemytė (Lithuania), turned the space of the 4th hall into one ecosystem. In the project area, the program of video films by artists Andro Eradze (Sakartvelas), Dana Kavelina (Ukraine), Goda Palekaitė (Lithuania) and Adrijana Gvozdenović (Montenegro), Sashko Protyah (Ukraine), Anastasios Sosunova (Lithuania), Miglė Vyčinaitė (Lithuania) will be presented.
Exhibition "Trail"
Curator of the international exhibition of sculptures, installations and performances "Takas", artist, head of the VDA Sculpture Department, doc. This year, Vytenis Burokas presents the projects of 29 artists at Take. At the press conference, he said that the organizers of the exhibition received about 100 applications. "It's nice to watch how the boundaries of the genre are expanding and sculpture and installation no longer belong to one branch of resolution, the variety of works at the fair is huge. It will be possible to see both the surface of the rusted metal and the melting work, where the traces of human activity are revealed", said the curator of the exhibition, adding that the theme of the Project Space "Heating Bodies" goes beyond its space and spreads throughout the fair, commenting on the current state of affairs. "Creation is a form of resistance to destruction, by enjoying creation we can create connections between people and thus contribute to change," said the artist.
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.
The favorite of the visitors of the fair, Monika Dirsytė will show her new piece "Axis code", which she will perform together with the opera soloist Agne Sabulyte. In the center of Litexpo, at the entrances to the halls, on Friday and Saturday there will be an artist dialogue on the theme of the human axis for eight hours.
The guest of the fair is Ukraine
"Glory to Ukraine and to the soldiers, thanks to whom we can be here, who fight not because they have to, but because they feel the need to fight for the Motherland", - Ukrainian Ya Gallery, which is participating in the ArtVilnius fair for the fourth time, said at the press conference founder, collector, exhibition curator Pavlo Gudimovs.
He said that the world only recently realized that in Ukraine the ongoing war has indeed been going on for centuries, only the enemy has never shown its true face. "Today we see what no one expected to see in the XNUMXth century - when a free state in the middle of Europe can be attacked, when someone interferes with the development of democracy and freedom in the country. We want to ask how contemporary art lives when there is a war?" said P. Gudimov.
The gallerist said that art galleries and institutions from the most dangerous regions of the country moved to the West of the country or abroad. "Many galleries have established themselves in Lviv, we have prepared a project called "Cultural Sanctions" with the cultural community, which was signed by many people of art and culture. Our position is clear: as long as Russia is an enemy, as long as it tries to cover its aggression with culture, the creators of this country have no place on our cultural platform. Together with the cultural community of Lviv, we have created a program where visiting artists are welcomed with greetings and walks. Four months after Kyiv was shelled, we held the exhibition "The Muse is Silent" where we showed art created during the war. This phenomenon has not yet been examined, what happens inside the artist has not been studied, the wars of the XNUMXst century are a new phenomenon about which we do not yet have knowledge", said P. Gudimov.
This year, six Ukrainian galleries are coming to ArtVilnius'22: regular participants of the fair Tsekh (Kyiv | Vilnius), Lviv's Ya Gallery, Kyiv's Art14 and Ra Gallery, already seen at the fair, new names of the fair - Kyiv's Shcherbenko Art Center" and "Naked Room Gallery", representing Ukraine at the 59th Venice Biennale this year.
In the project area, a special program of video films dedicated to ecology and Ukraine will be shown, showing poetic, critical, anti-war and other films by Andro Eradze (Sakartvelas), Dana Kavelina (Ukraine), Goda Palekaitė (Lithuania) and Adrijanas Gvozdenović (Montenegro), Sashko Protyah (Ukraine), Video works by Anastasia Sosunova (Lithuania), Miglė Vyčinaitė (Lithuania). Oleksijus Radynskis, a famous filmmaker and writer living in Kyiv, will present his individual project at ArtVilnius'22 - the video installation "Circulation", for which he spent three years filming the ever-changing landscape of Kyiv through the train window. In the background of geopolitical processes, the changing images of the city are hints about the war going on in the country.
Selection of the best fair participants
As every year, during "ArtVilnius'22" the selection of the best participants of the fair will take place. The evaluation commission, which includes art critic, photographer, organizer and participant of artistic projects, exhibitions, actions Virginijus Kinčinaitis, curator of MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow Monika Kozioł, curator of the "ArtVilnius'22" project area, art critic and writer V. Klimašauskas, Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Art Creators union chairwoman, head of cultural complex SODAS 2123 Danutė Gambickaitė, art curator and visual studies researcher Lesia Kulchynska will select the 7 best ArtVilnius'22 galleries, the Best ArtVilnius'22 artist, the Best ArtVilnius'22 sculpture/installation, the Best Young " ArtVilnius'22" artist, who will be awarded the prize of the fair's patrons, the law firm "Cobalt". Visitors to the fair will choose their favorites - "Viewers' Selected Gallery" and "Viewers' Selected Ukrainian Artist". They will be awarded Wolfs Engelman prizes.
Discussions, tours of the fair, virtual space
Art discussions, lectures and presentations will be held in the interactive LRT studio, which will be broadcast on the "ArtVilnius'22" YouTube channel. ArtVilnius'22 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. You can find more information about the fair, its program and participants on the event page at www.artvilnius.com.
The virtual space of the fair is an electronic catalog of the works of the fair participants https://artvilnius.com/lt/katalogas/kuriniai/. On the website of the fair, you can save the works you like and download them by e-mail. Those who were unable to visit the fair, after it ends, will be able to walk around and see the works in a 3D tour.
Today, Friday evening, when the doors of "Litexpo" will be closed, fair visitors are invited to night Vilnius, where the art festival for night owls "Art After Hours" will be held, in which 14 galleries and art spaces, 80 artists will take part, 9 events. The "Art After Hours" event is part of the Vilnius 700th anniversary program "700vilnius.lt".
"ArtVilnius'22" is financed by the Lithuanian Council of Culture, under its patronage Vilnius city municipality, special partner - "Lewben", patron - law firm "Cobalt".
