Bells and Cannons. Contemporary Art in the Face of Militarisation at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius

The international group exhibition ‘Bells and Cannons’ presents different strategies used by contemporary artists in the face of militarisation. Its title refers to the close relationship between art and war. Historically, bells were often recast into cannons and other weaponry during wartime. In other words, from its very inception, the idea of a bell has included the possibility of military use, and both bells and cannons were frequently cast by the same craftspeople. Fittingly, the exhibition employs this metaphor of unexpected congruence to explore the complex relationship between war and culture.

We could include art and culture as part of the contemporary conflict analysis vocabulary, alongside concepts such as soft power, psyop, and hybrid warfare. What connects them is the notion that it can be extremely difficult to distinguish between what belongs to war and what does not. It is equally challenging to determine when and which communication tools, data processing technologies, or energy structures are used for civilian versus military purposes, and for whose benefit. Similarly, decisions relating to climate change, altered landscapes, and historical memory can often appear ambiguous or opaque, like the motives and people behind them.

In such circumstances, strategies of militarisation, securitisation and peacekeeping inevitably invade the spheres of artistic responsibility and imagination. In the works of the artists presented in this exhibition, different relationships and compositions unfold between bells and cannons. Some ask what forces, beliefs, and strategies shape today’s military conflicts, or what role art may have in this context. Works from earlier decades address the ideological side of information technology, the fragility of international relations, and other long-term historical phenomena.

This exhibition is developed as the world reels from constant crises, military and otherwise, which often feed into each other. At the time of writing this text, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry reports that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while Poland calls for a NATO-backed no-fly zone over Ukraine after Russian drones have repeatedly violated NATO airspace. The disputes that surround these conflicts are dividing EU and global societies and, of course, artistic communities. The feeling of distress also comes with the irreconcilable simultaneity of the apparent need for armament like the deployment of the German Brigade in Lithuania on one hand and the wishing for more peaceful futures on the other.

As with works of art, where reality is revealed not through direct documentation but through the varied contexts of artistic practices developed over many years through abstraction, play, or other artistic means, this exhibition does not aim to provide a comprehensive, unequivocal, or objective reflection of militarisation and global conflicts. It can, however, be interpreted as an opportunity to explore diverse artistic practices in an increasingly discordant world.

– Valentinas Klimašauskas, Virginija Januškevičiūtė

ARTISTS:

Kateryna Aliinyk, Maithu Bùi, Anna Engelhardt and Mark Cinkevich, Forensic Architecture, Philipp Goll, Nikita Kadan, Lina Lapelytė, Bjørn Melhus, Deimantas Narkevičius, Henrike Naumann, Oleksiy Radynski, Indrė Rybakovaitė, Trevor Paglen, Sana Shahmuradova Tanska, Basma al-Sharif, Michael Stevenson, Hito Steyerl, Fedir Tetianych, Peter Wächtler, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Jan Eustachy Wolski, Tobias Zielony; and Berta Tilmantė, Neringa Rekašiūtė, Aurelija Urbonavičiūtė and Rūta Meilutytė.

CURATORIAL TEAM

VALENTINAS KLIMAŠAUSKAS – director of the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), curator, and writer.

Among his major international projects are: the 1st Klaipėda Biennial ‘Sunset Every Two Years”’(2025); the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (co-curated with João Laia; artists: Pakui Hardware and Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė; Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2024); the contemporary art festival ‘Coast Contemporary’ in the Lofoten Islands, Norway (2023); the 14th Baltic Triennial ‘The Endless Battle’ (co-curated with João Laia, CAC Vilnius, 2021); a choreographic project by Alexandra Pirici at the Ninth Fort Memorial in Kaunas (2020); and the Latvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (co-curated with Inga Lāce; Daiga Grantina’s solo exhibition ‘Saules Suns’, 2019).

In 2024, Klimašauskas published his English-language book Telebodies. Bleeding Subtitles for Postrobotic Scenes (Mousse Publishing, Milan), based on his doctoral dissertation in art at Vilnius Academy of Arts. He is also the author of the books Daugiakampis (Six Chairs Books, Kaunas, 2018), Oh, My Darling and Other Texts (The Baltic Notebooks of Anthony Blunt, Vilnius, 2018), and Alfavilnius (Kitos Knygos, Vilnius, 2008).

His texts have been published in A Prior Magazine, As a Journal, Beyond, Cura, Dot Dot Dot, Flash Institut, Flash Art, Kim Docs, Kunstnernes Hus, Good Times & Nocturnal News, Šiaurės Atėnai, ŠMC Interview, Metropolis M, Mousse, Nero, Paletten, Spike, and others.

VIRGINIJA JANUŠKEVIČIŪTĖ – curator at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Head of the Project Management Department, and one of the leads of the Baltic Triennial project. Among her most significant recent group exhibitions are the first annual Sapieha Palace exhibition ‘Refuge’ (co-curated with Edgaras Gerasimovičius, 2024), ‘Splitting the Atom’ (with Ele Carpenter, 2020), ‘An Architect Without Architecture? A Retrospective of Valdas Ozarinskas’ (2018), and the 12th Baltic Triennial (2015).

Since 2013, she has curated solo exhibitions and projects by Gintaras Didžiapetris, Melvin Moti, Darius Žiūra, Eglė Budvytytė, Antanas Gerlikas, Robertas Narkus, Algirdas Šeškus, Elena Narbutaitė, Malvina Jelinskaitė, Michael Portnoy, Brud, Yuji Agematsu, Arthur Jafa, Rosalind Nashashibi, and Anastasija Sosunova, most of which took place at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius.

Her major publishing projects include forthcoming books Aspects of Presence (part of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale) and a monograph dedicated to the artist Anastasija Sosunova, as well as the already published Refuge (co-edited with Edgaras Gerasimovičius) and the 12th Baltic Triennial publishing programme, which featured books and a guide produced by Dexter Sinister, Erik Thys, Kristupas Sabolius, Marcos Lutyens, Deimantas Narkevičius, and Elena Narbutaitė. She is also one of the initiators and organisers of the Visual Art Criticism Awards and a member of the Lithuanian section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).