On 24 April, the single-artwork gallery ‘apiece’ presents ‘Subsurface’, a collaborative installation by Emilija Povilanskaitė and Clara Schweers. Known for their distinct yet complementary approaches to material, form, and symbolism, the artists come together in this new work to explore the tensions between technological, geological and biological fields.

The artists describe the concept and specifics of their new work as follows:

At the heart of the installation is an embryo – suspended, encased, and pulsing with energy. Like the Earth’s core beneath layers of shifting crust, it is held within a system of protective enclosures. The piece evokes a metaphor of geological and biological nesting: a womb within the earth, a nucleus inside a shell, life suspended in warmth and tension. A central, three-layered glass structure houses the embryo, glowing with neon gas that evokes the heat of magma, the radiance of the sun, and the spark of new life. Two vertical tubes extend from this core – vein-like or spinal – delivering rhythmic pulses of energy. These glowing arteries animate the form, suggesting a continuous cycle of breath, growth, and emergence.

The materials used in ‘Subsurface’ – glass, neon gas, silver coatings, white cables, and transformers – are recurring elements in the artists’ practice, combining organic imagery with technological mechanisms. Though the forms are crafted from traditional glass, they are far from static; they shift states, moving from transparent to reflective, from stillness to radiance. In other words, the sculpture operates as a living system, mirroring embryonic development, geological pressure, and electrical circulation. It invites reflection on containment and exposure, the unseen forces that nurture and protect, and the delicate balance between fragility and strength.

Emilija Povilanskaitė is a visual artist and film director. Her work – rooted in storytelling – is multifaceted, connecting technology, science, research and olfactory design. Through her immersive visual and olfactory installations and films, she explores the complexity of technology, fictional worlds and their effect on human perception.

Underpinned by a strong interest in myth-making and folklore, unexplained phenomena, and forgotten traditional rituals, the artist offers sensory paths that, through fiction and imagination, may allow us to reevaluate and reaffirm our place as sentient beings amidst the current socio-cultural conjuncture, which sees the cult of the image and the screen reign supreme.

In a time when the Internet has reinforced the hegemony of the image, Emilija uses her approach to create olfactory and visual spaces that communicate on an imaginary, multi-sensorial, and tangible level, making us the more aware of the (real) world which surrounds us, as well as the varying relationships we may entertain with it (whether in states of perceived danger, fear, or hallucination).

Clara Schweers (b. 1994) skillfully intertwines the digital with the tactile, pushing the boundaries of contemporary art and design. Her practice exists as a dialogue between the virtual and the tangible. This exploration began during her influential time at Design Academy Eindhoven. While there, she explored the capabilities and limitations of computer-generated forms. Her work transforms and reinterprets the movement of pre-modeled figures. It unveils new behavioural qualities that seem to emerge directly from their digital roots.

Within her work, Schweers harmoniously blends various mediums, including glass, ceramics, and the polished textures of digital renderings. Glass serves as a consistent element, guiding her exploration of fluidity and permanence.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Text translated by: Martynas Galkus

Exhibition is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. Exhibition open until 1 June 2025

On 6 March, Julija Pociūtė’s exhibition opens at the ‘apiece’, a gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

The work ‘Forest Border Line’ continues the artist’s recent research which explores various ways of establishing a connection with the forest and, in some cases, reflecting on the absence of such a connection. According to Pociūtė, she is interested in how a close relationship with nature fosters a deeper understanding of the environment, encourages new interpretations of human interaction with their surroundings, and how past events become an inseparable part of the landscape.

The installation at the ‘apiece’ gallery is a field study focusing on a Holocaust site in Kaišiadorys, on the edge of the Strošiūnai forest. During her research, the artist visited the site to collect organic materials, observed plants and trees, and documented them through photography.‘Forest Border Line’ is a visual narrative that weaves together an exploration of the Holocaust site, gathered and recorded materials, read and heard stories, and an experienced emotional response.

The installation features a metal structure with open ends, from which carved wooden pieces from the Strošiūnai Forest extend. A camouflage-like fabric, made from leftover leather scraps from label production, hangs from the structure. Plastic fragments, embedded in the fabric’s folds and coated with wood dust, mimic the texture of tree bark. Bringing together different materials, the artist invites the viewer to rethink fundamental ways of experiencing the environment, to understand the layers of human and natural reality, and their interconnections.

The title ‘Forest Border Line’ (in Lithuanian ‘Pamiškė’) was chosen as a reference to an in-between space that belongs neither to the settlement nor to the forest. Historical memory is central to the work, shaping people’s perception of their surroundings and their relationship with a place marked by a painful past.

Julija Pociūtė is an interdisciplinary artist known for her mixed media installations based on interaction between video art, sculpture, design elements and photography. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Lapland in Finland, where she focuses on the impact of mindfulness and art-based practices, collaboration with trees, and interconnection with the forest.

Major exhibitions: ‘BlackBox gallery’, Munich, Germany; ‘Toruń Centre for Contemporary Art’, Poland; ‘SIM Residency’, Reykjavík; ‘OSTRALE Biennial O21’, Dresden, Germany; Gallery LEVANT, Shanghai (China); ‘Kai Art Centre’, Tallinn; ‘Latvian National Museum’, Riga.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Graphic design: Marek Voida

Text translated by: Martynas Galkus

Exhibition partly funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture

Exhibition open until 18 April 2025

On 29 January, Mykolas Sauka’s exhibition opens at apiece, a gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

For the past five years, Sauka’s creative focus and material of choice has been wood. “For me, wood evokes naivety, sanctity, cosiness, and Lithuanian baroque. It shapes the themes, and from them, day by day, an organised whole emerges,” says the artist. Using the exhibition space as a situational framework, the sculptor continually integrates new objects with earlier works, often reworking or adapting existing pieces until a cohesive composition of sculptural forms takes shape. He skilfully balances the scale of his works, drawing viewers into a multilayered visual world that stirs conflicting emotions: cosiness and chaos, security and unease, familiarity and an atmosphere of irony.

The exhibition at the apiece gallery reflects a contemporary society fixated on the cult of the idealised body. The pursuit of external beauty, perfection, and eternal youth reveal a state of inner conflict and discomfort with the naturally ageing body. The artist approaches wood as a metaphor for the body, treating it with the precision of a plastic surgeon—though his concern lies not with the beauty standards crafted by social media, advertisements, or films, but with their antithesis. As he explains, “I drive in pegs, glue things together, leave surfaces unpolished, and it shows.” The desire to depict imperfect bodies—or, in this case, body parts—is a gesture that empowers the artwork itself. Moreover, as the artist notes, “The sculpture becomes deformed due to my flawed anatomical knowledge and lack of skill. In other words, due to my naivety.”

The organised whole of body parts—hands, arms, feet, legs, torsos, and the body bacteria invisible to the naked eye, such as Demodex folliculorum—awakens imagination and curiosity in the context of the showcase-style gallery. Like a cabinet of curiosities filled with exotic artefacts (a kunstkabinett), it encourages us to “turn back” to none other than ourselves.

Mykolas Sauka (b. 1989) is a sculptor and writer. He completed his Master’s in Sculpture at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2014, and his work explores the identity of the contemporary human. In 2016, at the exhibition I Feel Watched by Another, he presented three-metre-high concrete sculptures realistically depicting naked elderly people. In 2023, he held a solo exhibition Children’s Room at the Vilnius Academy of Arts Exhibition Hall Titanikas, and in 2024, a show of the same name at Galerie Olivier Waltman in Paris, as part of the Lithuanian Season ’24 programme.

He was awarded the Kazimieras Barėnas Literary Prize in 2016 for his collection of short stories Grubiai (Roughly), and in 2024, he published his second book, Kambarys (A Room). He lives and works in Vilnius.

Exhibition curators: Milena Černiakaitė and Aušra Trakšelytė

Graphic design Marek Voida

Translation Martynas Galkus

Exhibition partly funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture

Exhibition open until 4 March 2025

More about the gallery apiece.lt

From November 24, the gallery apiece, located near the intersection of V. Kudirkos and M. K. Čiurlionio streets, will host an exhibition by New York-based Lithuanian artist Žilvinas Kempinas.

O2 is one of Kempinas’ early kinetic works from his ‘self-balancing sculpture’ series. While this piece has been exhibited in the past in traditional gallery settings against white walls, the vitrine-style apiece gallery provides the artist with the opportunity to realize his old idea: to install O2 by directing a fan and loop of magnetic tape toward the gallery’s glass façade (in this case frosted-matte) and illuminating the piece from the inside. This approach emphasizes only the shadow of the moving tape and removes the artwork’s physical components from the view – the fan and the loop of magnetic tape itself.

‘I see this new version of O2 as a step towards immateriality while still preserving its mechanics, as the installation can be viewed from the other side of the gallery,’ says Kempinas.

This new setting expands the associative field of O2, making the apiece gallery an integral part of the installation. The exhibition is accessible 24/7.

Žilvinas Kempinas (b. 1969) is one of the most renowned and internationally acclaimed Lithuanian contemporary artists. Based in New York since 1997, Kempinas creates installations, kinetic sculptures, and objects, as well as site-specific art projects. Since 1992, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Kempinas has received the Calder Prize (2007) and the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art (2012), and represented Lithuania at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).

Kempinas’ works are in the collections of major institutions, including the Pompidou Centre (Paris), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Copenhagen), MO Museum (Vilnius), the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (Vilnius), JPMorgan Chase Art Collection (US), The Margulies Collection (US), Museo Jumex (Mexico City), and Collection Lambert (Avignon, France), among others.

More information about the artist: zilvinaskempinas.com

Curator: Aušra Trakšelytė
Communication: Menų Komunikacija
Translation: Alexandra Bondarev

The exhibition is partially supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality. The exhibition will run until January 21, 2025.

On 9 October, Neringa Vasiliauskaitė’s exhibition opens at “apiece”, a showcase-style gallery strategically focused on autonomous artistic expression.

At “apiece”, N. Vasiliauskaitė presents her latest work, created specifically for the gallery. Here, as in her previous work, she explores the possibilities of material transformations, threads of place and time, and the meanings of rituals. The installation “Catch” consists of two photographs. On one side, there’s a photo she took herself in Brazil featuring fishing nets (2016), and on the other, an image of a random person’s netted bag with objects (2024). Both parts of the work are a continuation of one another, repeating the same pattern motif yet carrying different meanings and depicting different realities. These are two separate, independent “catches”.

The motif of the hanging photographs extends into the gallery space, wrapping around the glass surface. According to the artist, the recurring fragment weaves itself into both urban and natural landscapes. The “apiece” gallery proves to be an ideal setting for the installation, giving meaning not only to these landscapes but also to the surrounding rituals.

The exhibition’s title references the pursuit of luck, its significance, and how it is embodied in amulets and talismans. Hanging coins with dolphins—often called the always-smiling fish—reflect our desire to entrust luck to rituals, superstitions, and objects with magical meaning. In this work, the net motif becomes a way to “fish” for both catches and fortune.

Neringa Vasiliauskaitė (1984) is a visual artist, currently living and working in Germany. After completing her studies in Vilnius Fine Arts academy she continued to develop her interest in space and its relation to objects as an artistic practice at the Munich Academy of Arts (Germany). Combining various shapes and materials her work often manoeuvres between interior and inner worlds, using everyday motifs to explore connections to memories, nostalgia and illusions of other times and spaces.

Her works are part of these collections:  Städtische Galerie Villingen Schwenningen, Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, Sammlung FER Collection ir Alexander Tutsek Stiftung.

More about the artist: https://www.vasiliauskaite.com/

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 20 of November 2024

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