Lithuania:
Artists: Aurimas Aksys, Loreta Bilinskaite-Burke, BLIZGE (Rokas Petruskevicius, Zilvinas Landsbergas, Mindaugas Lukosaitis), Zilvinas Dobilas, Laura Garbstiene & Arturas Bumsteinas, Robertas Gritenas, Arunas Gudaitis, Karolis Jankus, Agne Jonkute Ignas Krunglevicius, Juozas Laivys, Zilvinas Landsbergas, Mindaugas Lukosaitis, Andrew Miksys, Andrius Rugevicius, Ieva Sireikyte, Alma Skersyte, Laura Stasiulyte, Modestas Sipila, Ketutis Sapoka, Vilma Sileikiene, Marta Vosyliute, Jonas Zagorskas (LT).

Curators: Kestutis Kuizinas, Linara Dovydaityte, Renata Dubinskaite, Kristina Inciuraite, Virginija Januskeviciute, Ula Tornau.

Catalogue:
Editing: CAC and the artists
Texts: curators and artists
In Lithuanian and English
Printed: s/o ‘Kulturas pilotprojekti’

Latvia:
Artists: Gunda Balode, Evelina Deicmane, Dace Dzerina, F5 (Liga Marcinkevica, Ieva Rubeze, Martins Ratniks), Kaspars Goba, Ernests Klavins, Girts Korps, Kristine Kursisa, Miks Mitrevics, Katrina Neiburga, Santa Oborenko, Anta Pence, Dita Pence, Ingrida Picukane, Kristine Pluksne, Kaspars Podnieks, pureculture (Simona Veilande, Emils Rode), Martins Ratniks, Kriss Salmanis, Martins Virbulis.

Curator: Helena Demakova
Project coordinator: Liga Marcinkevica
Assistant: Margita Zalite

Catalogue:
Chief editor: Helena Demakova
In Latvian and English
Pinted: s/o “Kulturas pilotprojekti”
2003: Together with Latvians

The ‘Lithuanian Art’ exhibition cycle has been staged at the Contemporary Art Centre since 1995. Arranged every second year on a regular basis, these synoptic exhibitions started as an alternative to the pattern of republican exhibitions that existed till then and was nurtured by Lithuanian Artists’ Association for Visual and Applied Arts. ‘Lithuanian Art’ exhibitions changed their strategies and organisational parameters constantly, and developed together with the institution of the CAC. Eventually, they turned into the CAC biennale, the most important programme event, intended to introduce the development and the leading trends of local up-to-date art. In 1995, during the first exhibition, over one hundred Lithuanian artists presented their works that were selected not by heads of sections and subdivisions of Lithuanian Artists’ Association (that was the common routine before), but by the external jury consisting of independent experts. In 1997, the CAC invited the most active art galleries and contemporary art institutions of Lithuania under its roof. This, partly artificially constructed fair of Lithuanian arts was intended to encourage inter-institutional dialogue and to stimulate development of local art market. In 1999, under the influence of on-going discussion on necessity of preservation of modern art and establishing of National Gallery, the CAC organised the retrospective exhibition ‘Lithuanian Art, 1989-99: The Ten Years’. The recent CAC biennale ‘Self-esteem’ was characterised by the fact of inviting the Swedish curator, Anders Kreuger. The exhibition that took place in 2001 became the first truly ‘thematic’ project of this cycle.
During preparations for the exhibition this year, Helena Demakova, the renowned Latvian curator of contemporary art exhibitions, suggested to the CAC to introduce art by Latvian artists of the youngest generation. The discussions on the possibilities and timing of such an exhibition came to the conclusion to combine the ‘Lithuanian Art’ biennial of 2003 with the desire of Latvians to introduce the art of their country to the Lithuanian public. Thus, the ‘2 SHOW’ project was born. It could be considered as two simultaneously arranged exhibitions of two countries, or one can just read the objective that lies behind the title: to show and introduce themselves together.
While working on this project, the team of the CAC curators was refreshed by the new force of young curators. The decision to reserve the ‘2 SHOW’ exhibition for the youngest generation of Lithuanian-Latvian artists and to review its most important characteristics there made this project the secure platform for the emerging artists to reveal their abilities as well as a perfect opportunity for curators to implement their new ideas. Therefore – let’s go for ‘2 SHOW’!

Kestutis Kuizinas