Re-Creating the Path of Remembrance. YIVO Celebration in Vilnius.

The first exhibition in Lithuania and the world to mark the 100th anniversary of  the legendary institution

Part I. 

The first exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of YIVO

In the beginning of March 2025, an unusual, special and warm exhibition opened in the heart of Vilnius, at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Titled as You Shall Not Make an Image. Commandments, Daily Life and Change, and occupying two floors of a very well maintained popular museum in the downtown of the Lithuanian capital, the exhibition is significant in several respects. 

At the opening of the YIVO commemorating exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery in Lithuania. March 2025. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LNDM. With kind permission.

By referring  in a multi-sided way  to the story of the legendary historical institution of YIVO, it is the first exhibition in Lithuania and the world to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the institution. With several more exhibitions to commemorate the important date on the way , later this year, in various Jewish cultural institutions of Lithuania, this exhibition is the first one, it is organised by a national cultural institution and is funded by the Lithuanian Ministry for Culture. It would be notable and commendable in any case, but today, in the atmosphere of either negligence or distancing from anything Jewish anywhere world-wide, this gesture is significantly meaningful. 

I first heard about the plans for the YIVO commemorative exhibition two years ago, when discussing a series of block-busting Chagall exhibitions with the Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas. “ And of course, in 2025, we would have the 100th anniversary of YIVO” – Dr Gelunas has mentioned – “ which we would celebrate in the best way possible”. – “ Of course”, I did agree knowing the academic background of the man who leads the Lithuanian National Museum of Art for the second term now, who previously was the Minister of Culture in his country and who represented it as Lithuania’s Ambassador in UNESCO. It was half a year before October 7th. Many things have changed, sometimes drastically, in the activities of so many cultural institutions world-wide. But the commitment of one of the leading cultural institutions of Lithuania and its leaders stayed. 

Before the opening of the YIVO commemorating exhibition in Vilnius. Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas with the exhibition curator Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene. Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C) Inna Rogatchi.

Now, prior to the exhibition’s opening, Dr Gelunas remembers with a palpable pleasure on how this special project has began: “ Our common friend Jonathan ( Brent, the director of YIVO) during one of his visits here raised the topic of the forthcoming 100th anniversary of our beloved institution, and of course, my initial reaction was “Absolutely. We will do it”.  

The idea of Dr Gelunas was to create a special exhibition dedicated to YIVO and its story in the year of the institution’s 100th anniversary, and to do it pointedly in the heart of Vilnius, in the beautiful, carefully restored and meticulously maintained central museum of the Vilnius Picture Gallery, which occupies one of the wings of famous 18th century Chodkevicius Palace. To have the exhibition there had the purpose to make it visible, known and visited by as many people as possible, both those who live in Lithuania and  those many who are coming to visit. The centrality of the place and a Jewish-themed exhibition in a non-Jewish cultural institution, well-known and of a national representation, were well-thought  lines of the director Gelunas’ thinking and planning. But not only. 

Vilnius Picture Gallery, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM.

“ For years, I dreamed of organising a Jewish-themed exhibition in one, or several of our ( The Lithuanian National Museum of Art) museums. I really did –  Arunas was sharing with me his reflections during our tour of just finishing exposition. – Lithuania of many and many countries does have its richest Jewish history, it has accumulated so much knowledge, culture, heritage and legacy of Jewish life, its art, its science, its literature. It all was developing here in the thriving and versified way for centuries. We are proud of it and are grateful for that. Jewish cultural heritage is an organic part of the Lithuanian national heritage, absolutely so, this is the fact of life, science and history. And it is the richness of our cultural heritage. So to celebrate it, in the year of the 100th anniversary of such a unique institution as YIVO, it has to be in Lithuania, it has to be in Vilnius, and it has to be in the national museum, right in the heart of Vilnius. There is a real pleasure for me and our team to do it, and it was a pleasure to work on it” – said the director of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas. 

Israeli Ambassador in Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg-Silberstein and the Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas at the exhibition opening. March 2025. Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C) Gintare Grigenaite, LDNM.

As soon as a curatorial team was formed to start to work on this special project, the destination of them was New York, where YIVO institute works for 85 years by now, in one of the most dramatic stories of culture and memory of our times. 

Re-Creating with Love: Curatorial Approach

For two of three curators of the exhibition, the Vilnius Picture Gallery director Aiste Bimbiryte and  curator Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene, it was the first professional encounter with the theme of Jewish heritage. The third curator, to whom they referred as ‘the box of knowledge’ is a well-known in Lithuania expert in the field , professor of the University of Vilnius Jurgite Verbikiene. 

When I learned that two of three curators of the exhibition presenting the Jewish heritage in Lithuania via the lens of the history of YIVO Institute had no previous experience with the theme, I asked both Aiste and Gabija what were their starting point for this demanding, multi-directional serious project that took a year of intense work. “

“When I started to think about this exhibition, initially I had an impression that there are many taboos in Jewish culture. The taboos which could institute a sort of a barrier which for people who are not experts in arts and culture would be difficult to overcome. But I was wrong. When I started to examine, to research and to learn, and to work with specialists, I realised that this is not the case altogether, and never was. As soon as that first and only hurdle for me personally was overcomed, the work on this international exhibition was a sheer pleasure, and the source of a massive learning, for which I am very grateful” – said director of the Vilnius Picture Gallery Aiste Bimbiryte, herself is an University teacher who specialises on the history of fashion. 

The exhibition’s curators, director of the Vilnius Picture Gallery Aiste Bimbiryte , on the right, and curator Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene at the YIVO commemorating exhibition. March 2025. Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM.

“ For me, it was the pleasure of discovery – said Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene, who is studying for her BA, specialising on a women artists of the 18th and 19th century , – and  as for an art historian, it was very interesting for me to look into the roots of the Jewish art, in many of its original sources, including books and manuscripts.  It also was important to work on a public project. Our exhibition presents things which are known to the specialists in Jewish heritage, of course, but we were trying to find special and importantly, authentic objects which would be attractive for the general public. Another curatorially interesting aspect during the last year of the work was discovery and presentation of those Jewish symbols which have different meaning from what is generally believed about it, which was a very happy, meaningful and engaging re-discovery”. 

Both Aiste and Gabija spent a week in New York in 2024, working intensely with their colleagues at YIVO going through the institute’s incredible archive, its collections and materials in order to distill the choice of the documents, original artworks and artefacts to be present at the exhibition in Vilnius. Importantly, most of the forty objects from YIVO presented in Vilnius are originals, with several copies among them. The materials from New York are quite substantial, it is over 20% of the entire large exhibition with its over 180 very different objects to be seen, from the rare books and manuscripts to Chagall’s hand-written  correspondence, and from a very rare and simply brilliant wooden carved sculpture of the 18th century to vivid and special original of Emanuel Mane-Katz painting of a happy Rabbi in a yellow robe. 

Thoughtful cooperation

The large exhibition is the fruit of an elaborate and thoughtful cooperation of not less than 20 major  cultural institutions, including YIVO in New York and the Chagall Committee in France, with which the Lithuanian National Museum of Art has forged of an extremely productive cooperation materialised in two major and unique exhibitions in 2023 and 2024, and who did contribute in providing the possibility to exhibit some parts of Chagall’s correspondence with YIVO, with some had-written letters and cards, which is a special magnet, to me. 

Special exhibit with Marc and Ida Chagall hand-written letters of their correspondence with YIVO leadership in the 1930s. Marc and Ida Chagall Archive (C). With kind permission.

Among the other partners are National Library of Lithuania with its incredible Department of Judaica and generally, one of the richest European cultural institutions, Lithuanian State National Archive, fine National MK Ciurlionis Art Museum, Lithuanian National Museum, important Library of the University of Vilnius, Vilna Gaon Museum, and several regional museums, many of which have truly special objects. Among those museums Pakruojis, Ziezmariai, Birzai, Alkam, Samogitian and Trakai museums, as well as Panevezys Diocese and Church Heritage museum of Lithuania.  Two leading private art collections in Lithuania, TARTLE Art Foundation and the Dr Jaunius Gumbis Collection of Lithuanian Art contributed very good original artworks for the exhibition, too. As everyone in the artfield of knows, to coordinate the effort between just a few institutions is a serious undertaking that requires a lot of time and effort. To run the exhibition with twenty partners, some of them major international cultural institutions, is truly a very demanding effort which in this case went on  smoothly and productively, for which the organisers are truly grateful. And so do we, all those who are coming to this unusual exhibition to find so many gems in a wide variety of genres,  and from a hugely expanded period, starting from the 15th century onward. 

Part of the exhibition presenting the contributions from the two major private collections. March 2025. Vilnius Picture Gallery. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM.

Implementation: Loving Care

For those visitors who are familiar with many exhibitions of the various institutions of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, with its eleven museums under the roof of the national cultural institution, the quality of presentation during the last several years is taken for granted. Having a privilege to be able to compare the way of exhibiting taken as a standard in the museums of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art with many other museums, both inside and outside Lithuania, I can happily mention that the level of presentation there is of a top world class. This is absolutely important, demonstrating not only the level of professionalism but also the level of respect towards museum visitors. It has always been like that, starting from the Louvre. 

The location and history of a museum as such do not necessarily guarantee the quality of presentation in a museum, as we all know well. The outrageous history of a virtual hijacking of the unique Vasari Corridor in Florence after the Uffici had become a target of a brutal mob terror attack in 1994, which had continued until very recently, is probably the most dramatic but just one of many sadly existing samples of neglecting the fundamental rules of exhibiting in too many museums world-wide today, due to a various reasons, from poorly educated staff to wrongly understood concepts. Or just simply due to not caring much. 

This is fortunately not the case for any exhibition organised in any museum of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, where the level and detail of presentation is classically high. Dr Arunas Gelunas, the Director General of the museum, did set it as a standard, with the team, of which  many people were  hired anew, after Dr Gelunas started to lead the national museum of art back in 2019. 

You Shall Not Make an Image exhibition in Vilnius. March 2025. (C). Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM.

“ When we started ( back in 2019), I was especially concerned by the technical conditions and presentation practices in our museums, but  in this one, in the Vilnius Picture Gallery, the old and famous palace which is located in the heart of the capital, I knew that before anything else, and in parallel with hiring the new team to run the museum, we needed to re-equip it. We did it by changing practically everything, from exhibition boxes, stands and vitrines to the top-end professional museum light system, which is a half of the success in every museum today. It was elaborate, time and resources consuming effort, but  we knew that before any new program should start, the museum should be re-made to be at the top international presentation level.  In parallel, we were hiring a new team, and when these both must-stages of our renewed Vilnius Picture Gallery museum were accomplished, we were able to take a deep breath of satisfaction, and to start to build on and develop our programs and exhibitions there, in this great premises in a star location in Vilnius. So, we are doubly glad to host our exhibition which tells about the unique history and way of YIVO from Vilnius a hundred years ago to New York eighty years ago , with happiness of rediscovery of many incredible things 35 years ago and joint work on it, with return to Vilnius from New York for this exhibition, first to mark the noble 100th anniversary of YIVO, these days. It has been quite a journey” – summarised Dr Gelunas.   And it was, indeed. 

Both, the architect of the YIVO commemorating exhibition Auste Kuliesiute-Semete and the exhibition’s designer Migle Datkunaite were also supposedly thinking of incorporating this idea of a way, the route of memory, the path of remembrance into their very thorough and masterly concept of the exhibition. In the case of this show, it was both the abundance of the material and artifacts from one side, and the objective to produce a laconic in outline and modern in style exhibition, from another.  Those factors posed a certain challenge for the  architect and designer. Both Auste Kuliesiute-Semete and Migle Datkunaite are recognised professionals in their field, and both are working with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art of many if its dizzying number of exhibitions, from 50 to 70 annually. 

Interior design of the YIVO commemorating exhibition in Vilnius Picture Gallery. March 2025. (C) Gintare Grigenaite. LDNM.

Architectural concept of this exhibition indeed resembles a path. In a visually organic way, it is lays down  a zigzag of the YIVO story and the Jewish life in Lithuania and its forced relocation beyond the ocean, escaping the war and the Holocaust. The design of the exhibition is both somber and sophisticated, with much attention paid by the designer Migle Datkunaite to every detail, from the colours and its shades in every of many rooms on two floors of the museum, to the charming and pointed details, such as six dots on every annotation card throughout the exhibition, both large and smaller ones. 

Those dots in the Migle Datkunaite personal design symbolises the six days of creation in the basic concept of Judaism. And it also, very personally and charmingly, refers to a milestone book by the founder of YIVO, great Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich, Di shvartse pintelekh, The Little Black Dots ( 1939), that has set the standard for written Yiddish for the masses, and has become the first YIVO published book in the institute’s Popular series. 

YIVO founder, legendary Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich and pages of his Six Little Dots book published in Vilnius in 1939. Collage: (C) Inna Rogatchi, 2025.

The tragedy speaks volumes here, as very soon, in two years, there will be no masses to learn classical Yiddish, in Lithuania for sure, and then, the YIVO so well-meant Popular series would stop for a very long and completely tragic time, as the date of the publication of their first book in it coincided with the beginning of the Second World War. 

So there were no takers any longer for the YIVO Popular series, for the reason of genocide unleashed all over Europe against the Jews. And the YIVO itself as an educational centre and institution had to move the far, the better running for its life. The destination was New York. 

About the gems and highlights of the first in Lithuania and the world the YIVO 100th anniversary commemorative exhibition in Vilnius is told in the Part II of the essay. 

March 2025, Vilnius

IR ©. 

You Shall Not Make an Image. Commandments, Daily Life and Change exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania. March 5 – September 14, 2025.