Western Winds ’26 / Frequency

The joint biennial exhibition of members of the Klaipėda Branch of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association is traditionally held every two years. Western Winds presents works by 65 members of the LAA Klaipėda Branch from Klaipėda, Palanga, Neringa, Telšiai, Gargždai and other towns and cities in Western Lithuania. The artists of the Klaipėda Branch offer the public an insight into developments in the visual arts and stylistic changes that have taken place in the region over the past two or three years.

The group exhibition features works in a wide range of genres and media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, small-scale sculpture, interdisciplinary art and applied art. This year’s theme is FREQUENCY.

For those who live by the sea, nothing is ever fixed. The water level, the direction of the wind, the density of the fog – everything here can change from one hour to the next. A person shaped by the coast is not, and cannot be, static. Their mindset is attuned to a constantly shifting frequency: they are always prepared for both complete stillness and a sudden storm.

Klaipėda fosters a particular kind of flexibility – the ability to remain steady amid the constant shifts of nature and emotions. In this region, the boundary between land and water is fluid. This fosters an open mindset, in which change is perceived not as a threat but as a natural state, or even something to aspire to.

The rapidly changing global context also influences the work of our artists. Today, art no longer seeks immutable, eternal forms – forms fixed at a single frequency. Contemporary artistic practice is increasingly oriented towards processes that shift in response to the viewer or the surrounding environment. It is art with a frequency and pulse of its own.

This project captures and reveals the creative pulse of Klaipėda’s artists – the transformations of their ideas and modes of expression. The colours and forms of the exhibition ebb and flow as naturally as the tides, embodying the continual evolution of the artists’ thinking.

Exhibition curators: Alfonsas Lekavičius, Inga Šmitienė, Toma Šlimaitė and Marius Norkus
Exhibition architect: Vladas Balsys
Designer: Virginijus Bakas
Coordinator: Birutė Skaisgirienė
The exhibition is funded by Klaipėda City Municipality, the Lithuanian Council for Culture and the Lithuanian Artists’ Association.