Global Art and the Museum

The Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) is the largest venue for contemporary art in the Baltic States, with an exhibition space of 2400 square metres. The CAC doesn’t have a collection of its own and is committed to developing a broad range of international and Lithuanian exhibition projects as well as presenting several public programmes including lectures, seminars, performances, film and video screenings, and live music events.

The CAC organises approximately five to six large-scale exhibition projects each year (including retrospectives, surveys, and international group shows) in conjunction with up to 15 smaller projects as well as exhibitions abroad. The building was inaugurated in 1968 as the Art Exhibition Palace and was run as a branch of the Lithuanian Museum of Art. The CAC was established in 1992, and is principally funded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture.

Zilvinas Kempinas, CAC, 2007

International Network

The CAC is well known as the home of the Baltic Triennial of International Art, one of the major contemporary festival exhibitions in Northern Europe. “The exhibition was founded as The Baltic Triennial of Young Contemporary Art in Lithuania in 1979 while the country was under the occupation of the Soviet Union. In the times of the Soviet Union, it provided the only possibility for international exchange and was the sole showplace for avant-garde art. After the restoration of independent Lithuania in 1990, the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) became the hosting institution of the Baltic Triennial in Vilnius.”¹

In 2009 the X Baltic Triennial: Urban Stories was the lynchpin contemporary art event in the national program of ‘Vilnius – European Capital of Culture’.
The CAC is also the commissioning institution for the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, with presentations by the artists Deimantas Narkevičius in 2001, Gediminas & Nomeda Urbonas in 2007, and Darius Mikšys in 2011. This year’s Lithuanian contribution to the Venice Biennial Behind the White Courtain has been awarded with a special mention for “its conceptually elegant, and productively ambiguous framing of a nation’s art history”.²

Instead of displaying his own art, the artist decided to act both as artist and curator hiding behind a white courtain “173 artworks by artists who have received the State Grant from Lithuania’s Ministry of Culture over the last two decades (1992–2010).”³

“Behind the White Curtain”, Lithuanian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennial. Photo A. Valiaugos, 2011
By browsing the “exhibition catalogue”, the visitors are granted the opportunity to select single art peaces and therefore construct their own show: “Simultaneously a meeting, salon, and exhibition, Behind the White Curtain depends on the visiting public to enliven the exhibition, according to their specific interests and preferences, and contribute to a constantly evolving placement of works both behind and beyond the curtain.”⁴

The CAC also produces exhibitions abroad. In 2009 it presented a Frieze Project in London produced by Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Navakas titled Break the Windows, Snatch the Crystals that garnered attention from world press. Recently, the CAC contributed to an off-site alternative and site-specific sculpture project in rural Latvia with the meta-exhibition SWAN SWALLOW BONFIRE ROSEMARY RECITAL (2010); and also collaborated on a five-city French-Lithuanian exchange project that ran for the second half of 2008. The CAC has also collaborated with institutions in the Czech Republic, Germany and Estonia to present the touring project FLUXUS East (2007–2008), and has been a partner institution, co-producer, and venue in the international exhibitions Holiday (2007) On Mobility (2006), Populism (2005), and Who If Not We…? (2004–2005).

George Maciunas Fluxus Cabinet

The CAC has recently re-opened its permanent exposition of the George Maciunas Fluxus Cabinet, which for three years toured, as a part of the international exhibition Fluxus East: Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe, to several museums in Europe. In 1997 the Cabinet was donated to the CAC as a gift from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, the world’s largest collection of Fluxus works, and curated by the influential historian of the Fluxus movement Jon Hendricks. The Cabinet consists of nearly 100 objects and presents work by many of the most important Fluxus artists, including, George Maciunas, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Shigeko Kubota, Ben Vautier, Mieko Shiomi, Henry Flynt, La Monte Young, Yoko Ono, and Ay-O. The collection of the Cabinet includes the scores and visual documentation of Fluxus ‘events’, photographs from seminal Fluxus festivals in Wuppertal, Nice and New York, Fluxus newspapers, and printed editions. With this borad spectrum of materials the collection reveals the interdisciplinary nature of this influential artistic movement, which contributed to transform the notion of visual arts in the 1960s.

The Reading Room

In 2009 the CAC launched the Reading Room – a dynamic space for reading, talking, and the presentation of social, educational and contemporary art events. The Reading Room, which is located on the ground floor of the CAC, is a development and extension of the popular CAC Info Lab that had been operating in the foyer of the CAC since 1999. In association with the launch of the Reading Room, the collection of reading materials was updated and expanded and the number of magazine and journal titles in the collection was broadened to offer the audience a wider range of current discourse. Particular attention has been given to establishing an extensive cultural theory and philosophy section, which includes the Verso ‘Radical Thinkers’ titles as well as artists’ books and experimental publications. The CAC also invited a number of local and international art critics and curators to suggest titles for acquisition. Besides those ‘Recommended Readings’, the users can access the historiographic project ‘Books Left Behind’, or new installments of the ‘One Book Exhibition’ series that features unique artists’ books. All publications stored in the Reading Room can be found via the online catalogue. In addition, the Reading Room hosts a programme of events such as discussions, talks, performances, and presentations related to the exhibition programme.

CAC Interviu

Published since 2005, CAC Interviu ‘the quarterly con-versation about art’ is a bilingual (Lithuanian & English) interview-based publication mostly focused on the Baltic region cultural scene but with an eye to topical events that impact on art produced internationally. It also features editorials, book reviews, and an artist’s project. Distributed via direct mail and available for free at partner institutions in major cities all over the world, CAC Interviu deals with art, cultural events, and cultural debate from post-soviet Europe. Following the ambition of the alternative broadcast project CAC TV _(2004 – 2007), _CAC Interviu aims to facilitate the Contemporary Art Centre at bridging Lithuanian cultural production with an international audience.

Notes

¹ Biennial Foundation Website. Last access 03.08.11. http://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennials/baltic-triennial/

² 54th Venice Biennial. Official Website

³ Lithuanian Pavillion at the 54th Venice Biennial

⁴ Ibid.

Unless otherwise specified all information have been compiled from press material provided by the institution and from the CAC website.