The Lithuanian Art Museum will hold a press conference in the Museum of Applied Art (Arsenalo St. 3A) on 12 March (Thursday), at 11:00, in order to present the international art exhibition “Longing for Nature. European Landscapes” organised by the cities of Vilnius and Linz following the national programme “Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009”. The Director of the Lithuanian Art Museum, Romualdas Budrys, the Director of the State Museums of Upper Austria, Dr. Peter Assmann (Linz), and the curators of the exhibition, Dr. Lothar Schultes (Linz) and Laima Bialopetravičienė, will take part in this press conference.
The President of the Republic of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, and the President of the Republic of Austria, Heinz Fischer, will be opening the exhibition on 12 March (Thursday), at 16:30. At 18:00, following the official programme of the opening ceremony, the exhibition will be presented to Lithuanian culture and art society. The exhibition will be opened for visitors until 17 May.
The international art exhibition “Longing for Nature. European Landscapes”, included in the programme “Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009”, is the most significant joint project being coordinated between the Lithuanian Art Museum (Vilnius) and the State Museums of Upper Austria (Linz). The idea of this project originated in 2004 when the head of the most important museum in Linz, Dr. Peter Assmann, came to Vilnius to discuss the programme of the European Capital of Culture 2009. The largest museums of Vilnius and Linz agreed to exchange valuable exhibitions and present a joint exhibition of European landscapes in Vilnius and Linz throughout 2009. In 2007, Vilnius had the opportunity to present a collection of paintings and graphic prints created by the world-famous painter Alfred Kubin (Alfred Kubin: Another Side of Reality) from the State Museums of Upper Austria. In 2008, the exhibition of Christmas Nativity Sets from Lithuania was presented in Linz, and in April 2009 it will be replaced by an exhibition of Baltic Amber from the Palanga Amber Museum.
According to Director of the Lithuanian Art Museum Romualdas Budrys, “the international art exhibition “Longing for Nature. European Landscapes” is a special art project consisting of some of the most unique European landscapes, which are also images of European souls born out of the personal experiences of the artists. European landscapes, however different they may be, are revealed in the exhibition through the common features of European civilisation as well as the lines of dissemination of Latin culture”.
The exhibition contains some of the most unique landscapes in Europe, from the Adriatic Sea to the North Sea, the British Isles to the Caucasus Mountains, painted by 138 prominent painters. According to curator Mr. Schultes, “most landscapes selected for this exhibition reflect not only the geographical diversity of the Old Continent, destinations or travelling experience, but also the lands of dreams. They become synonyms for human feelings. They symbolise adventure, freedom, infinity, light, heat and passion, as well as secretiveness, dreariness and melancholy. This exhibition presents many places of longing – familiar and clichéd, but also remote and untouched”. Curator Mrs. Bialopetravičienė assures that visitors “will see both art creations which feature views of elemental nature untouched by civilisation: mountains, fields, forests and water bodies, as well as artwork that depicts scenes from everyday life, architectural fragments or other man-made objects”. The concept of the exhibition’s layout is based on a more universal attitude, rather than geopolitical principles, in order to reveal the diversity of European landscapes in terms of the cultural traditions of the main regions of the Old Continent – Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, and Central European countries, unique mentalities, variations in landscape, the chronological and stylistic evolution of this genre; the originality of the painters’ work and their role in the development of European art history.
The exhibition contains over 200 landscape paintings ranging from the 16th to the 20th century from the collections of the Lithuanian Art Museum, the State Museums of Upper Austria (Linz) and the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum. The Latvian National Museum of Art, the Art Museum of Estonia, the Šiauliai Aušra Museum, and the Samogitian Museum Alka have also contributed to this exhibition.
The exhibition will be held in the Museum of Applied Art of the Lithuanian Art Museum (Vilnius) from 12 March until 17 May 2009, and in the Castle Museum of the State Museums of Upper Austria (Linz) from 3 June until 26 October 2009.
Special educational and art programmes will accompany the exhibition in Vilnius. The catalogue of the exhibition has also been published (in Lithuanian and English).
For further information on the exhibition, please contact curator Mrs. Laima Bialopetravičienė (GSM +370 614 81 822).
To publish this article please contact BalticTravelnews.eu editorial board
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