Exhibition Forever Temporary – a different perspective on art history
MO Museum’s new major exhibition, Forever Temporary (curated by Prof. Dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė and Dovilė Barcytė), brings together more than 160 artworks spanning from the Middle Ages to the present. Works from different eras meet in dialogue, exploring timeless questions about how humans relate to themselves, one another, and the world.
Dialogue between different art periods
According to MO Museum director Milda Ivanauskienė, the exhibition’s title is especially symbolic in today’s political climate, when civil society is once again called to unite in support of freedom, democratic culture, and human rights – values that must never be treated as temporary.
“Dialogue is one of the guiding principles in our exhibitions, so this time we chose to let works of art separated by centuries speak for themselves. It seemed meaningful to ask what a bridge across time might reveal – and what might resonate today,” said Ivanauskienė about the start of the exhibition.
The idea of revisiting art history from a fresh angle had been developing at the MO Museum for a long time. When art historian Prof. Dr. Giedre Mickūnaitė joined the exhibition team, the decision was made to explore this broad theme through the lens of enduring existential questions that, across eras, have often shaped artistic creation.
We used a simple analogy: bread is made from flour, but it is not about flour. Similarly, this exhibition is made of art history, yet it is not about art history. Instead, art history functions as the connective tissue between individual works and the way contemporary perspectives engage with historical art.
Art historian and exhibition curator Prof. Dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė notes that the new exhibition seeks to not speak about art history, but from within it. “We used a simple analogy: bread is made from flour, but it is not about flour. Similarly, this exhibition is made of art history, yet it is not about art history. Instead, art history functions as the connective tissue between individual works and the way contemporary perspectives engage with historical art,” Mickūnaitė explains.
The goal was not to impose new meanings on older artworks – meanings they could not have held in their own time. Rather, the different contexts of each piece interact through visual language and shared themes.
“We understand, for instance, that an 18th-century mythological composition is unlikely to speak directly about climate change. Yet unexpected connections emerge – for example, a portrait of an ‘oriental’ couple created by an unknown artist, rooted in themes of love and desire, forms a compelling dialogue with Rokas Dovydėnas’ ceramics, which ironically comment on our habit to exoticize unfamiliar cultures. The exhibition contains many such dialogues, and we invite visitors to discover them both with our guidance and independently,” says Dovilė Barcytė, curator at the MO Museum.
Twelve scenes – eternally important questions
The exhibition unfolds through twelve chapters-scenes, linked through the overarching theme of time. Humanity becomes the starting point: the opening scenes explore themes of the body and self-representation, prompting visitors to consider why we sometimes seek individuality and, at other times, turn toward community for belonging and security.
Other scenes explore how people attempt to explain what is inexplicable, make sense of the world, and define their place within it. These themes inevitably intertwine with love and fear, which are inseparable from human existence, as well as humor, a frequent strategy for coping with life’s challenges. The story of Forever Temporary concludes with reflections on obedience and rules, the role of work in our lives, and the expectations we place on ourselves and the world around us.
The key concepts of time are embodied in the works that greet visitors: a 16th-century Renaissance altarpiece symbolizing the cyclical return of the past; artist Selma Selman’s Motherboards (A Golden Nail) (2024), cast from dismantled and melted computer motherboards, and Dalia Truskaitė’s installation From Above (2023), which invites visitors to witness the ever-shifting present reflected in a mirror.
“These cultural understandings of time extend throughout the exhibition, so it is constructed as a multi-temporal space in which the grammatical present, past, and future tenses give way to memory, experience, and expectation,” says Prof. Dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė. The exhibition’s conclusion is marked by a shift to a different concept of time – geological time. Andrius Arutiunian’s installation Synthetic Exercises (2023) invites viewers to contemplate what lies beyond the human scale.
The exhibition Forever Temporary is on view at the MO Museum from October 11 to March 15.
