About Strategies of Opening and Openness in Lithuanian Museology

Nordisk Museologi 2001 • 1–2, s. 185–192 About Strategies of Opening 185 and Openness in Lithuanian Museology Elona Lubyte This is the narrative of a museum employee working during the period of ongoing change that is taking place in our country, Lithuania. After the restoration of independence, a new market economy strategy and the emergence of a private sector can be noted, both related to the new political view. They resulted from the attempt to return to the global context after half a century of Soviet occupation. The museum space is traditionally related to the protection and representation of cultural heritage. In Lithuania, as in the majority of Eastern European countries, museums and their collections are owned by the state. Our country has 93 museums of which 3 are national, 16 supported by the Republic, 56 mu- nicipal, 14 departmental and 4 private. A free market is characterised by selfregulatory laws. Exceptions slowly replace previously valid rules. Two private sculpture parks are ex- amples of such exceptions in the slowly recovering Lithuanian cultural scene: the Interna- tional European Centre Sculpture Museum, 1993, and the Grûtas Park, 1999, featuring disassembled monuments of the Soviet period. The stories of their creation represent two different models for establishing private museums, which, in a general sense, may be cha- racterized as the strategy of opening and openness respectively. The story of the lattery type of establishment gives more insight into the essence of the changes that are taking place. About ”museum science” or new winds of change and private structures are more successful at modernising, while old organisations change After the first decade of restored independen- very slowly. The era of change in our muse- ce, when the optimism of the ”singing revo- ums started with the separation. In the So- lution” had calmed down, we experienced viet period, all objects stored in the museum quite an inconsistency with regard to chan- belonged to the museum fund of the USSR. ges in museums. We can see that small, new The activities of museums were coordinated Elona Lubyte 186 by the Soviet Ministry of Culture. The cur- university and to students of the history and rent status of museums in Lithuania is based theory of arts at the State Institute of Fine on the Museums Law of 1995, which states Arts. However an opportunity to become fa- that the museum fund of the Republic of Lit- miliar with contemporarty museology in more huania is a part of the national property of detail and more systematically came only af- Lithuania. Ministries, urban and regional ter the restoration of independence. Neither municipalities, authorities, and private per- the museums, nor the nation, expected or sons may establish museums. were prepared for the changes that came so In Soviet times, when the freedom of reli- rapidly. We have experienced the changes as gion was abolished and churches were clo- a self-regulating process; not as a series of stra- sed, branches of state museums were establish- tegic moves but rather the result of intuitive ed in the churches to preserve historical col- decisions. Neither the State nor the institu- lections. This is why, in the 1950s–1960s, the tions blown about by the winds of change that Lithuanian Museum of Fine Arts placed the accompanied the new ideology have been able exhibition of Old Western European and Lit- to define a united strategy, until now. Public huanian Painting in the classical Cathedral promotion of the cultural decentralisation has Basilica of Vilnius, the exhibition of Lithua- given rise to a dense structure of branches of nian folk art in the baroque church of All national museums – the Lithuanian Muse- Saints, and the M. K. Èiurlionis museum of um of Fine Arts controls the Picture Gallery fine arts presented an exhibition of old of Vilnius, Radvilos Palace, the Museum of graphics and applied fine arts in a former ba- Applied Fine Arts, the National Fine Arts roque monastery in the suburbs of Kaunas, Gallery, Klaipëda Picture Gallery, Klaipëda etc. After independence, the act governing the Museum of Clocks, Palanga Amber Museum, restitution of the rights of the Catholic Suduvite Fine Arts Museum, and P. Gudynas Church stated that the said church was entit- Restoration Centre. M. K. Ciurlionis Muse- led to independence and the Republic of Lit- um of Fine Arts has Kaunas Picture Gallery, huania should reimburse it for the losses in- Mykolas Zilinskas Fine Arts Gallery, the curred during the Soviet period and return Museum of Ceramics, the Museum of Works any of its buildings then in the ownership of and the Collections of A. Zmuidzinavicius, the state authorities. The museums which the A. and P. Galauniai Home in Kaunas, A. were restored in the wake of radical adminis- Rakauskaitë and L. Truikis Memorial Apart- trative and organisational changes had to sol- ment in Kaunas, the M.K.Èiulionis Memo- ve complex problems concerning the moving rial Museum in Druskininkai, and V. K. Jon- and rearranging of collections and exhibitions. ynas Small Gallery in Druskininkai. It is ob- Storage rooms for paintings and sculptures vious that the branches of museums scatte- were installed in Vilnius Cathedral Basilica, red throughout Lithuania and engaged in next to the exhibition. various kinds of activities would in certain In Soviet times, as early as at the end of the cases operate more rationally as independent 1940s Vilnius University was training muse- subdivisions. Not to mention the maintenan- um workers and later, the course on museo- ce problems of such a number of buildings logy was taught to students of history at the which frequently increases as a result of the About Strategies of Opening and Openness in Lithuanian Museology organisation of events. State museums are or solve all the problems facing the Lithuani- 187 forced to change the nature of their activities an museums in a time of change. They do, drastically, learn how to save, raise additional however, serve as an introduction to the fol- sources of funding, adapt to the new needs of lowing stories about the intentions of two customers, etc. personalities representing different genera- Another problem originates in the changes tions and different philosophies in their ex- in the provision of the museum services. The ploration of the new power of private initia- collections of the Lithuanian museums are tive in the museum field. now open to the public in the republic (in the exhibition ”Christianity in Lithuanian About the strategy of opening, Art” staged by the Lithuanian Museum of or the attraction of the new Fine Arts, the public was introduced to the centre of europe history of ecclesiastical art, 1999–2003) and abroad (the works of M. K. Èiurlionis were The strategy of opening reflects an approach presented in international exhibitions – cul- which attempts to open up to the global de- minating in a personal exhibition of the ar- velopment processes, to return and rejoin the tist in the Quai d’Orsay Museum in Paris; international scene and become an equal part and in joint projects of Lithuanian and Po- of it. Eight years have passed since the first lish museum workers in 2000, etc.). New ex- international sculpture symposium, which positions and exhibitions are followed by tar- was held in 1993 near the private house of geted educational programmes. Unfortuna- Gintaras Karosas. He was a student of sculp- tely, the state museums have so far failed to ture at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, with realize that this process requires not only a a house, situated in an old suburban wood- well-developed administrative staff and pro- land abounding in springs, 19 km from the fessional keepers of collections, but also or- capital. At the moment, this outdoor Muse- ganisers and curators of the exhibitions. The um of Sculptures of the Centre of Europe (area organisation of artistic events is a complex and – 55 hectares) has 66 sculptures. Annually it time-consuming process in which, apart from receives about 50,000 visitors. What is the the directors and administrators, the staff im- story behind the museum, the first private plementing the idea plays a very important museum in Lithuania, established by a young role. This role and their competence regar- student, which in the beginning raised many ding the national cultural policy, is now con- doubts but which has exceeded the most op- sidered as especially important, although still timistic forecasts made by its advocates in the not clearly defined in the funding of projects. course of its being established? The idea of In my 14 years of employment with the Lit- the museum has its roots in the first public huanian Museum of Fine Arts and having or- political meetings and actions of the ”singing ganised 10 exhibitions at my central institu- revolution” (the Baltic Road of 1989, when tion and outside I have learned that the ap- during the 50th anniversary of the Ribben- proach of the state museums to the organisa- trop-Molotov Pact the citizens of the annex- tion of events is changing particularly slowly. ed Baltic States held hands and demonstra- These remarks are not an attempt to hide ted their determination to restore indepen- Elona Lubyte 188 dence to the whole world by means of their symposia on granite sculptures were organi- living chain along the Vilnius – Tallinn Road). sed in the seaside town of Klaipëda. In the At that time we cherished romantic hopes that course of time, mainly because of the remote all our ideas would come true and we could situation and the ambitions of the young ar- not imagine the efforts needed to achieve our tists, they became a place in which to bring goals.

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