Algirdas and Remigijus Gataveckas. Exhibition "Code: I Am"

On August 27 at 6 p.m., the "Meno niša" gallery will open a solo exhibition by artists Algirdas and Remigijus Gataveckas titled "Code: I Am".

In this exhibition, created as a unified installation, the artists turn their gaze toward the institution as a system that cares for a person, yet simultaneously shapes and disciplines them. The narrative, based on personal experience, raises the question of where institutional care ends and the restriction of individuality begins.

Algirdas and Remigijus Gataveckas (b. 1985) are a Lithuanian artist duo working in the fields of painting, drawing, installation, and public art. Their work combines the tradition of academic realism with the principles of conceptual art, with social exclusion, identity, memory, and human dignity as key themes. 2026 has been a particularly successful year for the artists: they became "Baltic Awards" laureates for their significant contribution to art, and their work "Genealogical Deformation" was selected from 1,474 submissions to be among the 51 works presented at the "Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Currently, the duo's drawing "You Are Already Looking at Me Longer Than My Parents Once Did" is on display at the Vilnius Picture Gallery exhibition "In the Beginning Was the Line. 18th–21st Century Drawings from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Collections". The Gataveckas brothers' work has also been presented outside of Lithuania – in 2023, their mural "Independence" was implemented in the interior of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Seoul. Their works are held in the collections of the MO Museum and the Vidmantas Martikonis "Autoportretas" gallery-museum, as well as in private collections in the USA, Austria, and Estonia.

The Gataveckas brothers share a long creative history with the "Meno niša" gallery – their debut solo exhibition "Situation" was held there in 2010, and the exhibition "Self-Portraits-Homonims" was presented in 2015. In their latest exhibition, "Code: I Am", the artists' perspective shifts: the focus moves from the individual, who previously dominated their work, to the institution that shapes them.

In the context of the exhibition, the institution is not associated with one specific system. The artists perceive it more broadly – as a structure that organizes human daily life, establishes behavioral norms, creates mechanisms of order, and defines an individual's place within the system. For the Gataveckas brothers, it is not only the person under the influence of the institution that is important, but also the logic of its operation: established rules, surveillance, and the relationship between the individual and the surrounding structure. Thus, the artists' personal experience in the exhibition becomes a starting point for a broader reflection on how institutions function.

The center of the "Code: I Am" exhibition is the transformation of the canvas. It is removed from the stretcher, covered in lapis lazuli blue, folded, and tightly bound with transparent packaging film. This is an irreversible act – the previous state of the painting becomes inaccessible, and the painting itself turns into an object. The film takes on a dual meaning – usually used to protect a work, it simultaneously compresses and restricts it. Lapis lazuli also occupies a special place in the installation. Once extremely valuable, it was associated with sacredness, nobility, and luxury. Today, the history of lapis lazuli is inseparable from resource exploitation and power conflicts. The Gataveckas brothers use the ambiguity of the material to speak about the creation and appropriation of human value.

In the exhibition, the Gataveckas brothers avoid a one-sided assessment of the institution. Here, care is inseparable from control, protection from restriction, and the bestowal of value from the possibility of its appropriation. The artists do not seek to resolve these contradictions. Rather, they leave them open, allowing the viewer to encounter the contradictions of institutional operation themselves.

The exhibition will run until October 3.

The project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

The gallery's sponsor is the Vilnius City Municipality.