Changing habits in art spaces—is it easy or difficult? This is what the ninth edition of Vilnius Gallery Weekend (VGW) will try to find out September 5–8.

VGW is organized by the public institution “Galerijų savaitgalis” together with the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association. It is funded by Lithuanian Culture Council and Vilnius City Municipality.

Since 2016, VGW has marked the symbolic beginning of the exhibitions season. As for every year, the event aims to draw attention to the wide panorama of contemporary art in Vilnius and encourage visitors to discover new checkpoints on the cultural map. In 2024, the format of VGW transforms: the programme now curated by the curatorial teams of selected galleries and art spaces. The first such team will be the single artwork gallery apiece and its founders Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė.

The curators proposed the theme of habits as the focus of this years VGW. How are new habits cultivated through exchange, communication and cooperation? This is an invitation to expand the notion of what an art presenting space does—a rethinking of the purpose and principles of art organizations.

The curators of the apiece gallery are no strangers to changing habits, nomadism and mobility. Since 2018, Černiakaitė and Trakšelytė have been organizing single artwork exhibitions on Didžioji Street in Vilnius. After losing their display window there, apiece wandered between the Lithuanian capital and the seaside town of Palanga before returning to Vilnius in 2021 to settle in a small-scale construction, a building containing no more than a room with two large display windows.

The curators say that despite their current permanent location, they are still on the move: not in terms of space, but rather in terms of activities, as they participate in various projects, organize gallery exchanges with similar spaces abroad and invite other curators to organize exhibitions at apiece.

The idea of exploring new habits of collaboration among the capital’s galleries was successful. Seven galleries decided to exchange spaces for one exhibition during VGW: InTheCloset is exchanging with Offshore Eyes, Rooster Gallery is swapping with apiece, while Vilnius Academy of Arts Outdoor expo is switching with the exhibition space 5 malūnai.

The HABITS programme has also attracted the attention of a museum—the National Museum of Lithuania—who has joined the exchanges. Four of its departments will exhibit the works of artist Robertas Narkus presented by the Vartai gallery, while the National Museum will present at Vartai a table designed by Jonas Prapuolenis that embodies a synthesis of art deco and folk style.

Other Vilnius galleries and museums that do not participate in the habit-changing exchanges will join the common VGW programmme on September 5–8, inviting visitors to new exhibitions and special events.

Finally, the HABITS curators invited the artistic persona behind the Instagram account avocado_ibuprofen to join in. In collaboration with designer Gaile Pranckūnaitė, communication specialists Stefanija Jokštytė and Eglė Trimailovaitė, avocado_ibuprofen created visual identity and merchandise for VGW.

Further information: vilniausgalerijusavaitgalis.lt

Artūras Čertovas’ Exhibition Impermanent Nature: Space as Artistic Matter and an Invitation to Experience the Constant Change of the World

The single-artwork gallery apiece will swap spaces with The Rooster Gallery for one month, presenting the exhibition Impermanent Nature by artist Artūras Čertovas on 5 September. The show is organised as part of the Vilnius Gallery Weekend’s curated programme ‘Habits.’

The exhibition Impermanent Nature could be seen as a kind of situation: created from scaffolding, found or borrowed objects, photographic and video works as well sound elements, its setting refers to fundamental flux, creating a sense of unexpectedness. By deconstructing and reconstructing the usual gallery space, the show focuses on the transient nature of both physical and internal states, emphasising constant change, and the sustainability and circulation of materials. 

Taking space itself as the creative matter, this multi-layered installation blurs the distinction between an object and its surroundings, inviting viewers to immerse themselves directly in the flow of the work. The exhibition results from a long-term, meditative, and poetically approached observation of everyday life and the ever-changing environment. Thus, the visit to the show is intended to also be a gentle and slow experience.  

The artist’s attentive approach to seemingly mundane details, and his subsequent creative process, are guided by intuition – the ‘sixth sense’ that can be refined through meditation. Here, the poetics of space and architecture unfold as a lens through which the world is viewed, inviting the viewer to remember: in an inherently impermanent world, everything is fluid and cyclical. Thus, the exhibition, reminiscent of a building site, regards any human action or natural process as acts of continuous creation, where each result is also the origin of something new.

Artūras Čertovas (b. 1995) is a Lithuanian artist currently living between Vilnius and Brussels. His practice investigates informal spatial situations and impermanence. The artist’s works have been presented in an abandoned barn in Eiliokiškės village (Lithuania), in a residency staircase in Lisbon, his private room in Luxembourg, and Gallery Atletika in Vilnius. He has a background in architecture, was a participant in the 8th Rupert alternative education programme in Vilnius, and an artist-in-residence in the Hangar artistic research centre in Lisbon and Kintai Arts in the town of Kintai, Lithuania. Previously Čertovas has worked at the Rotor Deconstruction cooperative in Brussels, a company organising the reuse of construction materials. He is currently actively involved in the exhibition architecture field and DJs under the alias A. Certo. 

The exhibition Impermanent Nature at The Rooster Gallery (St. Brunono Bonifaco St. 12, Vilnius) will run from 5 September to 6 October. Admission is free of charge.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

The exhibition is partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.

On 11 July, Natalia Januła’s exhibition opens at apiece, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

“Come closer”, she said to the snake. Tongue flicking and hissing “ss-sss-ss”, the snake moved towards the slick and scaly Goddess. Their picnic was formed of turbulent material, so the snake picked a path with care, navigating that which had been gathering in a time before time. Her utterance might have been lost between one epoch and another, but feeling beyond words, the snake registered an imminent potential resonating within the Goddess’ command. The eternal void was slippery with change, and there was so much motion in it; seas of chaos laughed, glittering as the formless waters churned. Amidst this hung an egg, still and perfect. The Goddess, a fish of great wisdom, watched as the final guest slithered to join them. She wondered if she had welcomed the one who could sustain the patient embrace required to release the multitudes focused inside her egg, but that is quite another story. “To health, to life, now let us begin”.

• Hannah Blows

The Picnic is exploring the potential and the paradox of a hyper-capitalist, globally connected reality. Bodies, nature, food, gender and labor are employed in an industry where even invisible and abstract forces, such as love, can materialize into a definitive economy of objects, consumerism, units and value. The work references culinary, anatomical and bric-a-brac assemblages via a nostalgic and satirical version of a “cabinet of curiosities” and edible products, for which the apiece gallery becomes a showcase.

Like goods in shop windows, the works of art displayed in galleries, especially in this one, are not themselves. In general, there is no such thing as a thing in itself. They signify the relationship among the present, future, desires, references, parallels, the ability to form memories and rituals, as well as the possibility of exploring the exchange between the object and the subject. Similarly, the egg, including its ability to nourish and give birth to new life, is a motif found in the mythology of many cultures and civilizations (the Cosmic Egg or the Earth Egg). Or else, the tongues and the fish, these silicone and 3d printed references to anatomical parts and animals, as well as the floating miniature table, express a humorous approach to Eastern European culinary delicacies.

Januła’s artwork focuses on socio-cultural rituals and practices, aesthetic-commercial methods of arousing desire and the “force of materiality”. Compulsive and habitual consumption is our cultural responsibility and duty, an indicator of our place in the social hierarchy. While Professors of Design Dunne and Raby argue that “by speculating more, at all levels of society, and exploring alternative scenarios, reality will become more malleable and, although the future cannot be predicted, we can help set in place today factors that will increase the probability of more desirable futures happening”.

Natalia Januła is a Polish-born artist currently based in London. She received her MA from Slade School of Art in 2016. In her current artistic research she looks into bodily fragility and the ambiguous and obscure connection between domesticity and technology, futurism and decay. Her practice employs a range of technologies and methods, including video, installation, CGI, performance, sculpture, kinetics and sound.

Crossing the boundaries of the intimate and alien, her work can be at once comforting and unnerving, desirable yet repulsive. A perturbing humor twists and winds pervasively throughout. Januła often works collaboratively in an effort to build a reciprocal ecosystem with individuals from various disciplines and backgrounds.

Januła has exhibited in the UK, USA, Canada and Europe including two solo exhibitions at New Art Projects (London) and Union Gallery; her group shows include the Horse Hospital, Final Hot Desert, Collective Ending, Iklectic, TBA Academy, Gossamer Fog, Embassy, Subsidiary Projects, Xxjira Hii, New Art Projects, the Factory Project and Conditions, amongst others. She has also participated in residencies at Jupiter Woods, Camden Art Centre, Biquini Wax and Arts Territory.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

The exhibition is partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.

The exhibition is open 24/7, until 1^st of September 2024

On 15 May, exhibition of Vladas Urbanavičius, laureate of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts, opens at “apiece”, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

The sculptor had a bunch of proposals for the showcase-type space, so it was quite a challenge to focus on “just one thing” that the object should be or do. The sculptor also said that the gallery itself presented a challenge, since it is neither a standard enclosed space, nor a public space in its usual sense. Moreover, one side of the gallery is oriented towards M. K. Čiurlionis Street (a more urban space), while the other side faces nature (S. Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė Square). In the ambiguity of this “closed vs. open”, “culture vs. nature” space, Urbanavičius’ “Bicoloured” is wedged into the gallery space that is itself framed by its windows. The work remains monumental without being dominant, and retains the characteristic features of the sculptor’s work: attention to material and a subtle sense of form and of exhibition space.

Sculptor Vladas Urbanavičius was born in 1951. He graduated from the State Art Institute (now Vilnius Academy of Arts) in 1977. Since 1976 he has been participating in exhibitions, and since 1978 in sculpture plein air exhibitions both in Lithuania and abroad. Urbanavičius’ sculptures are of unambiguous constructions, generalized monumental volumes and reductionist shapes. The author’s works have been acquired by private collections as well as Lithuanian National Art Museum, National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum, and the MO Museum in Vilnius.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų Komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Exhibition partly funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality

Exhibition open 24/7

On 14 March, Līga Spunde’s exhibition opens at apiece, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE is the title of the first solo exhibition of Līga Spunde in Vilnius, Lithuania curated by Romuald Demidenko at the apiece gallery. An installation by the Riga-based artist shaped as a gift, treated as a souvenir from a neighbour, or a seemingly selfless gesture from a friend.

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“You brought us gifts,” Michelle Obama said to Melania Trump on January 20, 2017, during the presidential inauguration ceremony at the White House. However, the contents of a gift-wrapped box were not publicly disclosed, and neither Melania Trump nor Michelle Obama shared what was inside. What we saw was merely a bluish box and the exact details of the offering remained disclosed. According to the noteworthy century-old essay The Gift by sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss, there are no free presents, and almost everything should be reciprocated. With this in mind, in what way Michelle was expected to respond? Or was the offering she received already an ineffable expression of gratitude?

There were rumours and speculation that the incoming First Lady’s wrapped box was a frame. An empty frame, implying a box within a box? Līga and I pondered this during an exhibition opening in a private apartment in Amsterdam where she had contributed her cuboid-shaped plaster sculpture that was covered in bluish paint to look as eye-catching as a package that all the media ran through (1). We have become accustomed to the idea of giving something to others for special occasions but clearly, not all gifts are desirable, just as the viral video of Michelle’s embarrassed expression captured so well.

Līga Spunde’s exploration of the mysterious, unexpected, and probably unwanted gift involved creating a replica of the bluish box, titled You Brought Us Gifts. This sculpture was transported from her former residence in Brussels in March 2017, precisely seven years before the exhibition at apiece gallery in Vilnius. The artist, who currently resides in Riga, is also referencing her 2018 performative exhibition, Free French Fries, at Komplot in Brussels (2). Visitors to the event could taste Belgian (French) fries made from Latvian potatoes. The artist brought them from her homeland in a backpack crafted from red, yellow, and blue mesh potato bags. “(…) hideously appetising, shredded, sliced in the shape of stakes. Ideally aureate and crispy longitudinal potato pieces straight from non-polluted Latvia,” as the dish was advertised in the press release.

Through her installation showcased at apiece gallery, Līga Spunde proposes confusion rather than generosity, most likely expressing a gesture of mockery rather than addressing something specific. By partially concealing the glass walls of apiece gallery and wrapping it up almost entirely with a self-adhesive matter, the space becomes an anti-expositor. An object that is visible, yet remains hidden, reminiscent not only of public art traditions but also, perhaps unexpectedly, of neoliberal forms of advertising that can be both received as art and also confused with it. To comprehend the artist’s intention, she invites all interpretations and encourages us to consider varied notions of an (unsolicited) gift and its hidden meanings, bringing up forgotten covenants and convictions, and eventually leaving questions unanswered.

Does Līga Spunde deliberately address the potential of the unknown conceived on the eve of the United States election, coated in the midst of anti-democratic trends seen globally? For her Vilnius exhibition, she somewhat refrains from using graphic works that have become her signature in recent years. In her cartoonish work and open-ended compositions, Līga often depicts figures or deformed anthropomorphic and animal-like creatures, fairy-tale protagonists whose representations blend with those of non-human entities, drones and other devices known from our digital-realist surroundings. This amalgamation evokes a blend of fears and fantasies derived from the immediate reality we inhabit. “What is within?”—we’ll ask. “And how will it manifest to our eyes?”

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Līga Spunde (1990, Riga) graduated in 2016 from the Department of Visual Communication of the Latvian Art Academy. Her works are multimedia installations, where personal stories are closely intertwined with carefully constructed fiction. The interpretations and use of recognisable characters serve as an extension of her personal experiences, tapping into general truths. Usually, the content of the work determines the physical form of the conception, so a variety of media and materials are used in the installations. Līga Spunde has participated in various exhibitions and art projects in Latvia and internationally such as Latvian Center for Contemporary Art, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Latvian National Museum of Art, La Casa Encendida, National Gallery in Prague.

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Romuald Demidenko is a curator and art historian based in Warsaw.

Endnotes

(1) Meet Me at The Metro Station, Amsterdam, GUEST ROOMS, March 4–10, 2017, with work by Ghislain Amar, Simon Asencio, Francisco Camacho, Nicholas Grafia, Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir, Anna Maria Łuczak, Gregor Różański, Līga Spunde, Susan Pietzsch & Miho Shimizu, Beata Wilczek, Annemarie van den Berg, and contributions from Helena Aðalsteinsdóttir, Ásgerður Birna Björnsdóttir, Emma Panza & Johan Romme, convened by Romuald Demidenko, http://guestrooms.xyz/prologue/, accessed February 2024.

(2) Līga Spunde, Free French Fries in Komplot, Brussels, June 30–July 1, 2017, introduction by Romuald Demidenko, https://www.kmplt.be/project_id_158, accessed February 2024.

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Acknowledgments: Milena Černiakaitė, Aušra Trakšelytė, Samantha Lesley Lippett, Patryk Walaszkowski

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Exhibition curator & text author: Romuald Demidenko

Exhibition coordinator: apiece

Communication: Menų komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Photographer: Vytautas Narkevičius

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Exhibition is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Nordic Culture Point & Vilnius municipality.

Exhibition open until 5 May 2024

Exhibition is open 24/7.

More about apiece: www.apiece.lt

On 31 January, Moa Gustafsson Söndergraard’sexhibition opens at apiece, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

The work Moving through is a research of movement and the physical aspect of walking

using geological and anthropological perspectives. The artist asks: what does it mean to be a human today as we physically move through the world? What paths are created and what questions arise as we explore our surroundings? What is our relationship with the outside world when we are spending ever more time in the virtual one?

The first version of Moving through was created during a three-month residency in Berlin (2023). This paper sculpture is based on thinking about the difference between moving in the cityscape in comparison to nature. The work reflects on how our body is changing the environment we are moving through by the traces we leave behind, but also how we ourselves are changed physically by the places we encounter. According to the artist, “since then I have been reading and writing and seeking more experience of being a moving vessel in the 21^st century.”

The exhibition venue becomes an extension of the work itself: placed in apiece, thework Moving through creates a new dialog with the gallery space. Taking into account the shape of the space, the artist has created a rectangular sculpture in which cotton ropes are threaded through the sculpture and attached diagonally to the walls of the gallery, so that the sculpture floats within it.

Moa Gustafsson Söndergaard’s (1991) work is situated around materials and places we surround ourselves with. She is interested in the memories these places and objects carry with them and how they shape both us and our society. Her practice is based on the method of field research. She collects materials, images and objects from different places and uses them as starting points for her work.

Materials that reoccur in her work are clay, hemp thread and paper. She is drawn to materials that have a sense of resistance and are easily altered or cast into a shape, as well as to materials that are connected to nature in some way or carry a narrative of their own.

More about artist: www.moagustafssonsondergaard.se

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Exhibition is partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Nordic Culture Point.

Exhibition open until 11 March 2024

Exhibition is open 24/7

On 2 December, Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė and Delphine Lejeune’s exhibition opens at apiece, a showcase gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

On the surface, microorganisms are destructive creatures. Through metabolizing matter, they shape-shift the appearance of substance by either dealing with or causing its dying. Patterns of behaviour emerge when organisms and microorganisms form a bond, resulting in a symphony of moulding. Changing the perspective by looking at the act of digestion through a microscopic lens places this process in a different light: an ornament is a lively death.

Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė and Delphine Lejeune’s exhibition a breath, the crumbling of fallen leaves introduces us to the visually alluring world of plant pathology. Their work sets itself in the environment it arrives from: standing underneath the little grove that surrounds apiece gallery, we look inside and see a material translation that originated in the collection of fallen leaves.

The microscopic imagery of those leaves demonstrates viral, bacterial and fungal infections and is rendered through 3D-printed objects.

The artists show us a process of metamorphosis from image to object, from word to form, from meaning to interpretation – a tender but strong fabric on which the vastly enlarged diseases cling, as if they were clutching the alveoli in our lungs. 

The exhibition has us look at disease with a hint of fear, as the human eye’s incapability to see a virus or a bacterium, but seeing rot, death, decay. The brown crumbling of a fallen leaf reflects on our own mortality. What we look at is uncannily beautiful, not morbid, but very much alive and opposed to the self-consciousness of finitude. In fact, there is so much life that comes after life, it should solace us to think that death is soil and thus the possibility to live on. 

It is not only the translation of visual, tangible and spoken languages that play a role. The game of scale adds a fourth vernacular to the mix: lost time. 

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų komunikacija

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Photographer: Vytautas Narkevičius

Light design: Justas Bø

Editing and translation: Alexandra Bondarev

The exhibition is partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

The exhibition is open 24/7.

More about apiece: www.apiece.lt

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On 18 October, Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis’ exhibition opens at “apiece”, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression. Here, Duonis presents a new piece that encompasses the gallery in its entirety.

The work has been inspired by a caricature, and the artist made a model of the exhibition out of a small aquarium and kept it on his windowsill next to his working desk. Previously, in an interview with Agne Narušytė, the artist said: “I’d love (…) to turn the “apiece” gallery in Vilnius, at the beginning of Čiurlionis Street, into a skyscraper. I once saw a caricature made of two drawings and laughed a lot. One of the drawings showed King Kong hugging the top of a skyscraper in New York, while the other one had a big office in this skyscraper, there was a shareholders’ meeting going on and through the window they could see this: King Kong’s genitals stuck to the window. Ha-ha-ha (…)”.

The exhibition DUNGASKROODIS fuses romantic capitalism and Čiurlionian visions: the light source installed at the top of the sky-splitting spire refers to the plot of M. K. Čiurlionis’ painting “Truth” (1905 (1906?)), while “The Altar” (1909) is embodied in a more contemporary architecture. The artist usually uses polyurethane materials to create his works, and this is no exception. Coincidentally (or not), the outer walls of the gallery are also coated with polyurethane, so that the work organically extends the gallery’s spaces and mercilessly alters its dimensions.

With this work, Duonis adds to his list of works in public spaces (Sapiegos Park, Paupys district, the CAC courtyard, among others) and claims to be an artist/public activist. Presented in the form of an exhibition at the “apiece” gallery, the work, with its Duonis-like character and peculiar title, is, by common accord, a joke in earnest.

Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis was born in 1968 in Seda. In 1994 he graduated in sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Since 1990 he has been actively participating in exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. Duonis creates sculptures, sculptural objects, video art, installations, costumes and sets for theatre, and organizes artistic actions. His works have been acquired by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the MO Museum in Vilnius.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Communication: Menų Komunikacija

Graphic design : Marek Voida

Exhibition partly funded by Vilnius City Municipality

Exhibition open until 30 November 2023

Exhibition open 24/7

There once lived a red-headed man who had no eyes or ears.

He also had no hair, so he was only in a manner of speaking called red-haired.

He couldn’t speak, since he had no mouth. He had no nose either.

He didn’t even have arms or legs. And he had no stomach, and he had no back, and he had no spine, and he had no innards at all. He had nothing at all! 

So there’s no knowing who we are talking about.

We’d better not talk about him any more. 

                                                                         / Blue Notebook, No.10 by Daniil Kharms

apiece is thrilled to host and welcome you to a one-night performance of THE HEALING SESSIONS pt 2 taking place on Saturday, October 14th, from 5:30pm at apiece, M. K. Čiurlionio square, Vilnius.

Through a symbiosis of technology and contemporary performance, THE HEALING SESSIONS creates a meditative sensation—mental and tactile— available to any passerby. Aiming to investigate the role of VR beyond the technological realm, the performance merges the virtual and the physical, the private and the public, building a circular unity of Observer and Participant, inviting to see and be seen. 

Exploring the intersections of perception within the context of ritual, THE HEALING SESSIONS bridges realities aiming to reunite with our physical sensations.

Performance by Žanete Skarule (LV) in synergy with Jette Loona Hermanis (EE), Viktoria Martjanova (EE), Anna Ansone (LV) and Evita Bhandari (LV)

Created with a support of VVFoundation and PAiR ResidencyPhoto by Pēteris Vīksna from The Healing Sessions at Alma gallery. 

apiece suggests: Dress up warmly!