One of the leading contemporary art galleries in Lithuania, based in Vilnius Old Town, is Meno Niša. From what I’ve heard the gallery is really vibrant and makes big efforts in the field of communicating exhibitions to wider public. I stopped by to ask how they do it from curator Sonata Baliuckaitė.
What kind of gallery is Meno Niša?
We work with young artist from all medias like performances, video, painting, but also with internationally rewarded famous artists like Rūta Katiliūtė, Gintaras Makarevičius and Jolanta Kyzikaite. We have agreements and we represent them at contemporary art fairs like Vienna contemporary and Positions Berlin. Last month we were at ArtKarlsruhe.
Lithuania has very good academy and our artists are really strong. Good art works internationally, and it doesn’t matter from which country you are from.
Our gallery also organizes ArtVilnius, which is the only art fair in our region with 65 galleries and wide program – exhibitions, installations, performances, museum expositions, educational part etc. We collaborate with institutions like Mo Museum, Mocak Museum in Krakow, also organize events in city of Vilnius. This year Vilnius galleries will stay open until 11 PM. Since 2014 we have had Wide focus country, this year it is France with 11 galleries, special expositions, performances, panel discussions.
Meno Niša showcased an exhibition ”Take a Deep Breath for a New Beginning” by very known artist in all Baltic countries Andris Vītoliņš. Artist participated just couple of weeks go in a group exhibition in Tallinn “Painted architecture”. His works have a very strong pop vibe and the colour scheme is very unique and bright. Usually his works are strongly sight specific, also in Meno Niša where his painted tables started walking like in cartoons and a large scale painting was misplaced like trying to escape from the wall. Artist shows us a new, non-existing world, which solely exist on the canvas, challenging and giving alternative to our days overwhelmed photographic epidemic.
Sonata Baliuckaitė said the exhibition was really successful. “The exhibition serves as a tool communicating to the viewer a sense of dynamism and an era of change, simultaneously showing the instability and vulnerability in this structured and mathematical environment. Therefore, the works are exhibited in an irregular way, giving a sense of movement and gravity to the exhibition. And our visitors felt it.”
“The greatest challenge the future reality will face is its origin, it will no longer be made by the human mind based on resemblance to Gods, rather generated by a computer program,” said the artist Andris Vitolinš himself out the exhibition. “But perhaps the artificial intelligence will swell and be able to simulate Divine revelations and Oceanichfeelings?”
Last I heard, the artist Andris Vītoliņš, who is having an exhibition in the gallery, was heading to photo shoot, organised by the gallery. What was that for and how do your persuade the artists do participate? Is media generally interested in arts or it is harder to get stories about art in to media?
Our gallery is 16 years old. We have our strategy, we want to be interesting for visitors, collectors, but also for journalists and we work a lot on it. Our team is really small but we have one person who works with journalists, social media and etc. .
Sonata, please recommend art lovers some venues to visit when they come to Vilnius?
I would recommend to visit Mo Museum, ArtVilnius, National gallery, CAC, Rooster gallery, AV17, Autarkia, Rupert, galleries of Vilnius Academy of Arts, Titanikas gallery and also Artifex.
