A Walk through the ArtVilnius’22 Art Field: What’s There to See, What Can Not Be Missed?

This weekend, the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Centre Litexpo will become the largest art gallery in Lithuania. 70 art galleries and institutions and 320 artists from 18 countries will be housed in the three main halls of the center and outdoors in an area of 12,000 square meters. The organizers and curators of ArtVilnius’22 international contemporary art fair have prepared a program for the visitors of the fair, the main highlights of which are the genres of installation, sculpture, and ecology, and the guest of the fair is Ukraine.

How to avoid getting lost in the labyrinths of ArtVilnius’22? What is important and necessary to see? Which artists from Lithuania and other countries to get to know? The following navigational tips may help you answer these questions.

Look for galleries in halls 5 and 3 

The main ArtVilnius’22 gallery program and stands will be located in halls 5 and 3 of Litexpo. Visitors, art collectors, and buyers will be welcomed there by the fair’s old-timers, the galleries Okapi (Estonia), Māksla XO (Latvia), Galerie Nivet-Carzon (France), the Lithuanian Artists’ Association gallery Meno parkas, Baroti (KADS), Meno Niša, The Rooster gallery, Galerija Kristina Norvilaitė, Terra Recognita, and others, as well as first-timers Galerie Intershop (Germany), Latvian gallery Look!, the Ministry of Art from Kaunas, and Tumo Gallery from Vilnius. 

The organizers of ArtVilnius’22 are also pleased with a large number of regional galleries. Panevėžys city art gallery and LAA gallery Galerija XX, Dusetai art gallery, Molėtai art gallery, Palanga Ramybės Galerija, Šiauliai LAA Gallery S_in., VAA Telšiai Art Gallery, Vilkamirgės gallery from Ukmergė. 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 this year’s 59th Venice Biennale. 

You can choose your favorite works in advance in the online catalog of the fair participants at artvilnius.com/catalogue/artworks/. You will be able to save and download the selected works to your email. Those who cannot make it to the fair will have the opportunity to see the artworks and visit the galleries after the fair in an interactive 3D tour. 

Delirious Bodies in hall 4 

This year, Valentinas Klimašauskas, curator of contemporary art and writer, focuses on the theme of ecology in the Project Zone in ArtVilnius hall 4. The joint project Delirious Bodies will transform the Project Zone into an open and audience-engaging “city within a city” ecosystem. This includes the work of queer feminist Natalia LL (1937-2022), presented by the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, as well as the stage installation Injured Wind by Lithuanian artist Roberts Narkus, who is currently representing Lithuania at the Venice Biennale, and the group exhibition Do octopuses dream people? by the Lewben Art Foundation, the exclusive partner of ArtVilnius’22. The latter exhibition includes the sculpture Fat Car by Erwin Wurm, one of Austria’s most renowned artists, which explores the relationship between power, wealth, and body weight. 

Jonas Mekas’ diary 365 Days, presented by the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center, is also a must-see, as is the program of videos on ecology and Ukraine. Twelve Ph.D. students of the Vilnius Academy of Arts will present parts of their practical research in the project Studies. Danas Aleksa, Madeleine Andersson (Sweden), Anna K. E. (Georgia) and Florian Meisenberg (Germany), Oleksiy Radinski (Ukraine), and Marija Žiemytė will present their individual projects. 

A path of sculptures, installations, and performances will be laid out indoors and outdoors

The international sculpture, installation, and performance exhibition Takas (The Path) has become a tradition at the fair. The curator of the exhibition, artist, head of the Sculpture department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Assoc. Prof. Vytenis Burokas, presents 29 projects by individual artists. 

Sculptures by Jonas Aničas, Tauras Kensminas, Matas Janušonis, Nerijus Erminas, Rytis Urbanskas, and Rafalas Piesliakas will be installed in the field near the Litexpo center. Textile artist Monika Grašienė-Žaltė brings visitors back to the balcony of the exhibition center this year, where her impressively large work speaks about current issues. More artists will be responding to world events – Žygimantas Augustinas, Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, Sergei Beloaki, and others. 

Monika Dirsytė, the favorite of the visitors of the fair, will present her new work Axis Code, which she will perform together with opera soloist Agnė Sabulytė. It will be an eight-hour dialog on the topic of a human axis, which will take place on Friday and Saturday. The performance will take place outside Litexpo, at the entrance to the halls.

Selection of the best 

As every year, during ArtVilnius’22, the best participants will be selected by an international jury, including art historian, photographer, organizer, and participant of international and national art projects, exhibitions, and campaigns Virginijus Kinčinaitis, the curator of the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow Monika Kozioł, curator of the ArtVilnius’22 project zone, art critic and writer Valentinas Klimašauskas, chairperson of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association and head of the cultural complex SODAS 2123 Danutė Gambickaitė, and art curator and researcher of visual studies from Ukraine Lesia Kulchynska. 

The award ceremony will take place on 7 October, at 6 pm, in LRT studio located in hall 5 of Litexpo. The 7 best ArtVilnius’22 galleries, the best ArtVilnius’22 artist, the best ArtVilnius’22 sculpture/installation, the best young ArtVilnius’22 artist (the prize of the fair’s patron, the law firm Cobalt) will be announced there. On Sunday evening, the Audience Select Gallery and Audience Select Ukrainian Artist will be awarded the Volfas Engelman Prize. 

 For night owls

On Friday evening, when the doors of Litexpo close, visitors are invited to the city of Vilnius for the Art After Hours festival for night owls. The festival will open the doors of Vilnius art galleries, art institutions, and art spaces, and will include meetings with artists and gallerists, guided tours of exhibitions with art historians, and even performative Tarot card readings. 

Art After Hours will feature 14 galleries and art spaces, 80 artists, and 9 events (artist meetings, exhibition tours, performances, and exhibition openings). Galleries and museums will keep visitors up until 11 pm. The Art After Hours event is part of the Vilnius 700th anniversary program 700vilnius.lt and is partially funded by the Office of the Government.

Guided tours and tickets

Tickets for ArtVilnius’22 can be purchased on Bilietai.lt. The organizers recommend avoiding queues and purchasing 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), and a two-day ticket is EUR 22. On Friday, 7 October, ArtVilnius’22 will be open to visitors with tickets from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., on Saturday – from 11.30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on Sunday – from 11.30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

ArtVilnius’22 will continue its popular guided tours of the fair with art historians, who will professionally help you navigate the halls and stands of the event and introduce visitors and art buyers to the highlights of the fair. The price of a day ticket with a guided tour is EUR 30. For more information about the fair, its program, and participants, please visit the event page at www.artvilnius.com. 

 

ArtVilnius’22 is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, under the patronage of Vilnius City Municipality, with Lewben as the Exclusive Partner, and Cobalt as Maecenas.