The BT14’s take on the region engages with its composite constitution, highlighting transnational connections. The inclusion of some artists from locations such as the Balkans, the Caucasus or Finland, underlines Central and Eastern Europe’s porous boundaries as well as its belonging to a global and multilayered network of systems.
Regularly experiencing abrupt shifts, Central and Eastern Europe is a key crossroad for social issues related to ideology, ecology and economy. The region’s gravitational pull is further highlighted by the introduction or anticipation of numerous tensions, which later also emerged elsewhere such as disinformation, man-made industrial disasters, nativist nationalism, or the oppression of non-normative identities.
The BT14 connects the rich artist-led Vilnius scene. As the organising institution, the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) invited the project spaces Atletika, Autarkija, Editorial, Rupert, and Swallow to join as partners. Each platform will autonomously develop a project while including some of the artists presented at the CAC’s exhibition. Another ally, the Lithuanian Artists’ Association, shared their spaces and archive, which holds key documents about the early iterations of the Baltic Triennial.
BT14 will be presented across the city of Vilnius, with exhibitions and/or events programmes at the CAC and the Lithuanian Art Association Gallery (curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia), Atletika (exhibition-performance “Who Are You?” presenting artists Žygimantas Kudirka and Felicita), Autarkia (three nights of events curated by Robertas Narkus and JL Murtaugh), Editorial (exhibition “Feed” presenting artist Anni Puolakka, curated by Neringa Černiauskaitė and Vitalija Jasaitė), Rupert hosted by Tech Arts (exhibition “Authority Incorporeal” curated by Adomas Narkevičius), and Swallow (solo exhibition by Tomasz Kowalski).
In collaboration with international partners Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga, Latvia), the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art (Tallinn, Estonia) and Mousse Publishing, the CAC in Vilnius will also produce a reader with launch events planned in cities including Berlin, Riga, Timișoara, Vilnius and Warsaw during autumn and winter 2021/2022.
BT14’s architecture project by Isora x Lozuraityte studio proposes a radical reshaping of the CAC’s iconic city-centre building, rechoreographing its spaces through a number of interventions which place ecological sustainability at its core and uncover the layered history of the site.
Together, the voices grounding BT14 map Central and Eastern Europe as a kaleidoscopic, queer space-time of strange realism whose extraordinary polyphonic juxtapositions echo the complexity of the world at large.
Curators: Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia
Architecture: Isora x Lozuraityte studio (Petras Išora and Ona Lozuraitytė)
Design: Nerijus Rimkus
Artists: Jüri Arrak (Estonia), Tekla Aslanishvili (Georgia), Alex Baczyński-Jenkins (Poland / UK), Juta Čeičytė (Lithuania), Zuzanna Czebatul (Germany / Poland), Anna Daučíková (Czechia / Slovakia), Aleksandra Domanović (Serbia), Harun Farocki (Germany) and Andrei Ujica (Romania), Uli Golub (Ukraine), Edvinas Grin (Lithuania), Lubomir Grzelak (Poland), Henrikas Gulbinas (Lithuania), Flaka Haliti (Kosovo / Germany), Klára Hosnedlová (Czechia), Monika Janulevičiūtė and Antanas Lučiūnas (Lithuania), Milda Januševičiūtė (Lithuania), Agnė Jokšė (Lithuania), Krõõt Juurak (Estonia) and Alex Bailey (UK), Dóra Maurer (Hungary), Flo Kasearu (Estonia), Zsófia Keresztes (Hungary), Jiří Kovanda (Czechia), Vojtěch Kovařík (Czechia), Tomasz Kowalski (Poland), Edward Krasiński (Poland), Žygimantas Kudirka (Lithuania) and Felicita (Poland / UK), Danutė Kvietkevičiūtė (Lithuania), Sasha Litvintseva (Russia), Natalia LL (Poland), George Maciunas (Lithuania), Yarema Malashchuk and Roman Himey (Ukraine), Barbora Matonytė (Lietuva), Rachel McIntosh (USA / Finland), Jonas Mekas (Lithuania / USA), Robertas Narkus (Lithuania), Ania Nowak (Poland / Germany), Markéta Othová (Czechia), Jaakko Pallasvuo (Finland), Agnieszka Polska (Poland), Nada Prlja (Bosnia and Herzegovina / North Macedonia), Anni Puolakka (Finland), Karol Radziszewski (Poland), Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (Lithuania), Adam Rzepecki (Poland), Kirill Savchenkov (Russia), Sergey Shabohin (Belarus), Jura Shust (Belarus), Janek Simon (Poland), Miša Skalskis (Lithuania), Emilija Škarnulytė (Lithuania), Martina Smutná (Czechia), Virgilijus Šonta (Lithuania), Anastasija Sosunova (Lithuania), Mladen Stilinović (Croatia), Lukas Strolia (Lietuva), Emilija Škarnulytė (Lithuania), Oleg Šurajev (Lithuania), Viktor Timofeev (Latvia / USA), Dominika Trapp (Hungary), Goran Trbuljak (Croatia), Evita Vasiljeva (Latvia), Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor (Romania), Elena Veleckaitė (Lithuania), Austėja Vilkaitytė (Lithuania), Stephen Webb (US / Finland), Jonas Zagorskas and Žilvinas Dobilas (Lithuania), Artur Żmijewski (Poland), and others.
Baltic Triennial 14 is co-presented with Autarkia, Atletika, Editorial, Lithuanian Artists Association, Swallow and Tech Arts (in collaboration with Rupert)
Financed by: Lithuanian Council for Culture
Main Partner of the BT14: Government of Flanders
Supported by: Baltic Culture Fund, Goethe-Institut Vilnius, and Frame Contemporary Art Finland
Gallery name: Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (CAC)
Address: Vokiečių 2, Vilnius
Opening hours: Tue-Sun 12:00 - 20:00
Open: 04.06.2021 - 05.09.2021