Search

The article employs the theoretical base of new museology to examine the six annual curated exhibitions organised by the Soros Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in 1993-1998 in Lithuania in an attempt to reveal the nature of the connection with the audience that these exhibition established, the way in which they did it, and the type of viewer they attracted. The annual exhibitions held by the SCCA were important events in the history of Lithuanian contemporary art. The authors of most overviews of the changes in the Lithuanian art scene of the 1990s hold that these exhibitions encouraged a transformation of the exhibition life and the integration of Lithuanian contemporary art into the international art scene, started the new, previously unseen practice of producing works for particular exhibitions, and shaped the new type of exhibition-event. Five of the annual exhibitions took place at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), founded in 1992 after the reorganisation of the Vilnius Art Exhibition Hall, and one exhibition was held in public spaces in central Vilnius. The reception of the exhibitions and their communication with the viewers were influenced not only by the organisers' (the SCCA and the curators) aims and intentions, but also by the exposition environment itself. In 1992, the CAC became a classical "white cube" space. The white cube as a model for the organisation of exhibition space was appropriated by the CAC as an aesthetical concept, without regard to its political and critical connotations. This model changed the traditions of exhibiting art and influenced the symbolic status of art and the exhibition-goer. It freed the observers from mundane life and allowed them to experience visual pleasure, yet also separated art from the general public, having endowed works of art with an aura of exclusivity and value. In many cases, socially engaged works that were exhibited in this space lost their critical dimension. Contemporary art exhibitions attracted a new generation of viewers, while the space itself and the exhibitions held in it shaped the values of the latter. In many of the SCCA's annual exhibitions, the viewer assumed the passive role of an art consumer and was not encouraged to become intellectually involved in the narrative of the exhibition. The latter act was also hindered by the lack of contextual information in the space itself and by the layout of the exhibitions, which often lacked semantic focal points. Efforts to engage the viewer intellectually were limited to texts in the exhibitions' catalogues, which were aimed at well-read viewers rather than the general public. The lack of contextual information in the exhibitions themselves and the occasionally uneven and misleading spatial structure of the exhibitions prevented the viewers from better comprehending the intentions of the curators and the works themselves, as well as from becoming engaged in the process of generating meaning, and confined them to enjoying the visual experience of the exhibitions only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article surveys trends of self-reflection in Lithuanian contemporary art curators and reviews the change's that have taken place in the identity of the curator since the late 1990s. Referring to interviews with curators made in spring 2006 and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production, the author analyses the peculiarities of Lithuanian curatorial practices and follows the prevailing modes of interaction among curators, institutions and artists. Although the first curated exhibitions in Lithuania were organized by art critics as early as 1988, when, straddling the realms of cultural production, the term "curator" first established itself, the definition of the curator's identity still remains vague. The first curated conceptual art exhibitions in Lithuania of the late 1990s laid the foundation for curatorial activities and the development of curatorial practices. These exhibitions demonstrated the subjective views of art processes by the individual curators. Nevertheless, professional evaluation of these processes made by critics determined the transformation of art criticism into curatorship. The notion of curatorship in Lithuania is not yet fully established. It is, however gradually acquiring certain concrete features in both professional and legal terms. Curators, who are currently working in Lithuania, often perceive themselves as mediators between the artist, the artwork and the spectator. They define their practice both as a production of new discourses and as stimulation of the existing art processes. To summarize, the main agents of the contemporary Lithuanian art field could be entitled the critic-curators and the artist-curators. Critic-curators' practices depart from a theoretical perspective, whereas artist-curators perceive curatorship as an integral part of their art practices. In the Lithuanian cultural field there is no clear distinction between freelance curators and those working in the institutions. Both apply their individual professional strategies in the definite institutionalized art field, cohesively collaborating with each other as well as with the other agents. The small reach of the Lithuanian art field, which is hemmed in by centralized subsidy resources and relatively few active exhibition venues, determines the positive approach taken by curators towards institutions, which significantly facilitates the organization of contemporary art projects. One heavily problematic aspect of Lithuanian contemporary art curatorship is the absence of a professional legal status: for example, curators working in the state museums or for non-museum state institution may be named „museum keepers‟ in official documents. Official legitimatization of this status could become a base for the formation of curatorial identity; whereas curatorial production - a conceptual exhibition or a project - would finally acquire a status to which copyright laws apply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]