The “Golden Badges / Golden Muses” award is the Lithuanian Artists’ Association’s highest distinction, recognizing artists and art scholars for outstanding achievements and contributions. It carries special significance, as it is bestowed by fellow artists—critics who are also creators themselves. Since 2000, more than 80 artists have received this honor. This jubilee exhibition, celebrating the Association’s 90th anniversary, offers a unique opportunity to admire these exemplary artists and their works, which continue to inspire new generations.
The exhibition features 31 artists working in painting, graphics, photography, textiles, and ceramics. Due to spatial limitations, three-dimensional works such as sculpture, glass, and ceramics could not be included; instead, the focus is on two-dimensional works. The exhibition aims not only to reveal the most striking artistic discoveries to the audience, but also to celebrate the enduring significance of the artist’s role, enhance the prestige of the Association, and seek out emerging talent.
The title, “High Voltage Network,” evokes the concentrated, electrifying power of art. These works aim to intrigue, inspire, attract—and sometimes even provoke. The achievements of these artists are both innovative and influential: they explore unconventional materials and techniques, yet resonate far beyond local contexts, enhancing Lithuania’s cultural presence on the international stage. Their works have been acquired by museums, galleries, and private collectors, both at home and abroad.
These works are charged with tension and complexity, blending extreme states, intimate revelations, and existential challenges. They reflect the artist’s place in society and the universal struggle for survival. The visual language of these creators remains urgent and relevant, engaging viewers and posing profound questions about values, existence, and human experience.
“High Voltage Network” is a celebration of the artist’s singular existence, resilience, and the relentless pulse of creative energy—efforts that are often underappreciated. Painting, textiles, photography, graphics, and ceramics converge across themes of history, culture, religion, and national identity. The exhibition focuses on the human condition, set against the intensively shifting realities of ecological survival and the interplay of past and present.
Artists embrace bold, unexpected confrontations: contrasts of color, fractures of line, flashes of shadow and light, unique textile techniques, and fragmented compositions. These elements weave a complex network of tension, joy, and unease. Each work pulses with its own rhythm—sometimes a flash of anxiety, sometimes a whispered calm—drawing viewers into multiple layers of artistic expression, from abstract and photorealistic to surreal and metaphorical.
In this “high-voltage network,” works explore the survival of the world, human existence, and inner dramas. They channel powerful creative currents, comparable to electrical discharges or intense electromagnetic fields, immersing the viewer in the energy of contemporary art.
Exhibition participants:
Romualdas Balinskas; Rimas Zigmas Bičiūnas; Irma Balakauskaitė; Elena Balsiukaitė Brasdžiūnienė; Laima Drazdauskaitė; Salvinija Giedrimienė; Ieva Babilaitė Ibelhauptienė; Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė; Audrius Gražys; Bronius Gražys; Kęstutis Grigaliūnas; Algis Griškevičius; Feliksas Jakubauskas (1949–2025); Lina Jonikė; Paulius Juška; Elvyra Katalina Kriaučiūnaitė; Eglė Kuckaitė; Dalia Laučkaitė Jakimavičienė; Linas Liandzbergis; Eimutis Markūnas; Laima Oržekauskienė; Vygantas Paukštė; Audronė Petrašiūnaitė; Žydrutė Ridulytė; Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė (1933–2007); Šarūnas Sauka; Remigijus Sederavičius; Nijolė Šaltenytė; Arūnė Tornau; Eglė Vertelkaitė; Virginijus Viningas
Curator: Nijolė Nevčesauskienė
Architect: Ieva Glumac
Partners: Vilnius Town Hall, InBeauty, Vynoteka
Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Artists’ Association
This exhibition is part of the 90th anniversary program of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association and the Lithuanian Council for Culture’s “Strategic Funding of Art Creator Organizations” program.
