Everything You Are Not Supposed to Do. 21st-century Lithuanian female artists within the historical painting exhibit at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art 

13 March – 28 September 2025

Some things are strictly forbidden. They violate the boundaries of bodies and the integrity of the world, they weaken and frighten us, pouring salt on our wounds and into the earth. Such matters are regulated both legally and through religious doctrine, their consequences and documentation displayed in museums and schools, immortalised in monuments for generations to come. It is not difficult to find out that it is forbidden to steal food and torture people, that it is forbidden to occupy countries and to mock those who look different from you. Yet forbidden acts are being committed all the time. Enormous systems and ideologies support the expansion of cruelty, infusing our daily lives with it. Sometimes without even knowing it, we might participate in brutal and unjust processes – traces of them can be found in our medicines, in our shampoos, in our money and our choices, and, yes, even in our museums. Even there, between the layers of paint and gilding, protected by the walls of history. 

 

There are also things you simply must not do. You must not yell or kiss under the watchful eyes of the paintings, you must not swear, you must not remember certain uncomfortable matters, and you must accept that some truths are too big to doubt. There are all sorts of little things we are not supposed to do, and they are easy to quickly discipline, control and condemn. We do not particularly care to preserve them for the future either – often someone’s protest, an awkward question or an out-of-place graffiti is only appreciated after the collapse of an order against which it was directed. In various societies, even being a female artist has long been unacceptable, to say the least. Even being a non-male when you truly wish to is still not always allowed – just like drilling into the walls of an old museum or disagreeing with the definition of a masterpiece. Contemporary art is concerned with these impossibilities and the true reasons behind them. Some of them are indeed there to uphold community health and meaningful relationships. But others are deeply rooted in instances of cruelty and become the perfect cover for various grandiose yet perpetually violated prohibitions. Art is just one way of peeling back this camouflage – and perhaps even tearing it into bandages. 

 

The exhibition Everything You Are Not Supposed to Do invites you to explore the practices of 21st-century Lithuanian female artists against the backdrop they deserve – within the historical painting exhibit at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art. Situated alongside 16th-to-19th-century Western European artists, these 21st-century artworks also come from the repositories of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, which safeguard not just tapestries and photographs but also an idea of what our state should be, its cultural and memory priorities. To reveal and actualise this collection, we too must do things we are seemingly not supposed to, such as breaking polite silence or giving up our curatorial authority. And we are only successful some of the time – even as I am writing this text, I am not sure how everything will work out. Whatever happens to this exhibition and to the world, I hope that, at least for a short while, it will allow you to do if not all, then perhaps some of the things you are not supposed to do: marry whomever you want, read strangers’ conversations, proudly accept sickness and loneliness, insist on gifting art, and recognise yourself as a deity; create ever-so-slightly too elaborate names for joy, both shared and personal, which is one of the most natural weapons against cruelty. 

Monika Kalinauskaitė 

 

 

Artworks by: Eglė Budvytytė, Janina Gražina Degutytė-Švažienė, Laura Garbštienė,  Kristina Inčiūraitė and Rita Mačiliūnaitė, Agnė Juodvalkytė, Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė, Danutė Kvietkevičiūtė, Aurelija Maknytė, Relita Mielė, Elena Narbutaitė, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Gintarė Sokelytė, Regina Šulskytė.  

  

Organiser: LNDM Radvilų rūmų dailės muziejus.  

Curator:  Monika Kalinauskaitė  

Curatorial Assistant: Audrius Jerašius  

Coordinators: Lina Jonkuvienė, Nojus Kiznis 

Graphic Designer: Gailė Pranckūnaitė   

Communication Coordinator Aistė Marija Stankevičiūtė.  

Guide: Erikas Siliuk  

Educators: Daiva Banikonienė, Ona Kvašytė 

 

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Radvila Palace Museum of Art,
24 Vilniaus st, LT-01402, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 250 5824

See also

Exhibition opening

The new Radvila Palace exhibition shows all we should not do