Dalia Truskaitė:
KISS AND HUG

In this exhibition, Lithuanian artist Dalia Truskaitė returns to one of her creative directions, creating site-specific works in which the elements of the work literally penetrate the architecture, conceptually eliminating boundaries and opening up the fluidity of space and a new perspective. The focus is not on a physical object, or even the space itself, but on the impression created by the viewer's direct intervention in the environment of the work. Her works are sometimes so masterfully placed in space that the viewer is confused because there is "nothing" in the exhibition (e.g., in the exhibition "Place" at the Pamėnkalnis Gallery, the work was a physical multiplication of the architectural elements—columns—present in the space itself, an intensification imitating material reality, so the exhibition appeared to be "formless"). By creating unexpected expectations, her works interact with viewers who enter the space, sometimes confusing them by subtly engaging their consciousness. In this way, Truskaitė provokes attentiveness, touching the nerve of visual deprivation and stimulating the viewer's imagination. 

Dalia Truskaitė's work often reflects themes of transience, change, and decay, using fragile and ephemeral aspects of materiality to rethink the environment that surrounds us as a dynamic, changing space that accumulates time. The use of moderate forms in her work highlights conceptual content and creates spaces for reflection and contemplation. The author raises questions not only about visuality, but also about the changeability of the work and the viewer's participation. Forms refined to bare minimalism question the pressing problems of the abundance of images today, invite us to focus on the experience of the present, test the viewer's acuity and alertness, and the barely perceptible object of the exhibition directs its weight toward the registers of contemporaneity. 

This exhibition is like an architectural joke, created by imagining the gallery space from across the sea, without ever having been there. First, you study the floor plan of the room, where a lone, seemingly lost column catches your eye, then you look for photos and find the only one with a large, solitary window. You browse through photos of exhibitions and openings that have taken place in the gallery, trying to better understand the space – you notice many details that tell the long history of the gallery. You sink into that ever-thickening chorus—who, where, when was added, improved, fixed, covered—you begin to drown in it... and return to the lonely, strange column that first caught your eye, and the equally lonely window through which light pours in, trying to embrace it. 

Dalia Truskaitė is a contemporary artist of the middle generation, known for her conceptual, post-minimalist site-specific artworks, sensitive and refined perception of the surroundings, and evocative rethinking of space. The author has won an award for the best installation at ArtVilnius'21, the Lithuanian Artists' Association Prize, the Gold Prize at the Toyama International Glass Exhibition 2024. In 2025, Dalia Truskaitė was awarded the Lithuanian Government's Culture and Arts Prize. The artist is represented in the exhibition by the Arka Gallery (Vilnius, Lithuania). The exhibition is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the LATGA association, and the Vilnius City Municipality.