Ten years have passed since the euro replaced the litas, yet Lithuania’s former currency still evokes a sense of nostalgia. The litas will soon reappear in the public eye – in a solo exhibition by young Lithuanian artist Mykolas Valantinas, entitled ‘Father’, opening on Friday, 7 November at 6 p.m., at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius. Ahead of the opening, we spoke with Mykolas about his first solo show and the path that led him here.
A couple of years ago, you took part in the JCDecaux Prize exhibition for emerging artists. It was your first major public showing, and your work Mouth to Mouth won the Audience Award. Could you tell us how you came to realise yourself as an artist, and how your life changed after the competition and the recognition it brought?
Mykolas Valantinas: I studied philosophy at Vilnius University. In my second year, I realised I wasn’t much of a philosopher: the written word didn’t suit me, so I needed to explore other forms of expression – otherwise things could get rather bleak. That’s when I discovered photography, and I’ve been around it ever since.
As for the competition, recognition is always pleasant, though it’s hard to measure how much my life has changed. Would I be preparing this show if not for JCDecaux? Maybe. Probably. All I know is that it was my first experience working with a larger art institution: managing a budget, working with technicians, and learning the practical side of being an artist. I enjoyed that experience and took it as encouragement to keep going.
Your solo exhibition ‘Father’, curated by Povilas Gumbis, opens at CAC on 7 November. If I understand correctly, the title itself points to one of its main figures: the Father. What is the exhibition about, and what should visitors expect?
M. V.: This show brings together what I’ve been working on over the past two years, along with several new series from 2025, shown alongside my father Rytis Valantinas’s archive. I’ve always admired his work and wanted to do something with it. After the JCDecaux Prize, I felt tired of art and wanted to be ‘just a guy’ for a while, so I worked in the cloakroom of a club in Berlin. It gave me space to think. I realised that endlessly doing group shows and making small one-off pieces wasn’t leading anywhere. I wanted to make something that genuinely mattered to me, not just in theory. I wanted to find a theme that I could take the time to explore in depth. Eventually, I realised that everything costs money, so I learned to print banknotes.
I’ve noticed that in both your JCDecaux Prize project and your forthcoming exhibition, you’ve included works by other people alongside your own. In 2023, at the National Gallery of Art, you brought to light the carved walking sticks of Mečislovas Ežerskis. Now you’ll be showing your father’s archive and AI-generated pieces. What does working with other artists mean to you?
M.V.: After working with Mečislovas Ežerskis, I told myself I wouldn’t do that kind of project again – it’s far less stressful when you work alone: if you mess up, only you take the hit. When you work with another person and their archive, you’re fighting for both of you; you’re carrying their trust. You don’t want to let them down; you want them to be happy with the result. Working alone is simpler. In general, using other artists’ works alongside your own is tricky and problematic, but it’s easier when you share the same surname. In this case, the person whose works I’m incorporating into the show is my father. Deep down, I know he’ll be proud; I feel his trust, so I don’t worry too much. Besides, the benefit goes both ways. After all, I’m an heir – it’s only sensible to boost the market value of the legacy.
Your work is notably diverse – and this will be evident in Father as well: photography, archives, installations, film. How do you choose your means of expression?
M.V.: It’s always fun to learn something new. I try not to stick with what I already know. This show proved to be a real technical challenge. The theme itself dictated the tools – my father’s graphic archive and his designs for several series of the litas (100, 200, 1000 denominations and a few ‘vagnorkės’). I had to get into banknote security tech and software, different printing methods – etching, screen printing, offset. We even made a coin and spent ages fine-tuning the AI training models. When you’re making a decent counterfeit, it’s all in the detail, so I had to learn patience and precision – both pretty alien to me until now. I wouldn’t have picked up so many techniques quickly without other people’s brains and help – I’m really grateful to them. But let’s save the thank-yous for later.
Father isn’t your only collaboration with CAC this year. At the end of November, your film Lullaby’s Fault (2025) will premiere in Lithuania at CAC’s Sapieha Palace space. Can you briefly introduce it?
M.V.: It’s my Master’s graduation piece from ÉCAL. I’d turned down invitations to screen it before, so now, as part of Artists’ Film International, it’s finally being screened for the first time since my studies. The film inhabits that peculiar space between more traditional narrative cinema and video art, which only makes sense in exhibitions. When I was making it, I tried not to overthink things – I trusted the image. I guess the film itself is about the triumph of the poetic image over logic. What runs through it is the theme of trauma left behind: children playing, making up the rules as they go. With no boundaries set in advance, they end up crossing the line of innocence. The film’s dreamlike rhythm follows the twin brothers through childhood, weaving in Jonas Biliūnas’s Kliudžiau (I Got It) and bits of transformative folk tales. A gentle uncanny.
In your films, young boys often play the main roles, and you employ a visual language that feels familiar to them yet resonates with other age groups as well. In ‘Father’, you focus on money – a subject you seem to approach both playfully and philosophically. At first glance, your work could appeal to very different audiences. Who do you imagine your viewer to be?
M.V.: It’s often the case that your work attracts people similar to yourself – whether in a social, economic or subcultural sense. But it’s always more interesting when it reaches other layers of society. Hearing different perspectives really adds to how I understand what I do and what matters to me. When you’re putting together a show – especially when you’re not represented by a gallery – what’s beautiful is the freedom and privilege not to analyse your market, not to define your viewer. You can just make the work and see where it lands. I’m curious to see what kind of crowd the upcoming exhibition will draw.
Mykolas Valantinas’s exhibition ‘Father’ will be on view at the Contemporary Art Centre (Vokiečių g. 2, Vilnius) from 7 November 2025 to 1 March 2026. Curated by Povilas Gumbis.
A guided tour with the curator will take place on Thursday, 13 November at 6 p.m.
Valantinas’s video work Lullaby’s Fault will also be screened as part of ‘Artists’ Film International 2025’ (AFI’25), curated by Povilas Gumbis and taking place between 27 and 30 November at CAC’s Sapieha Palace venue (L. Sapiegos g. 13, Vilnius).
For more information on accompanying events, visit cac.lt and sapiegurumai.lt
Main image: Rytis Valantinas. Autoportrait. 1979
Translated by Emilija Ferdmanaitė