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Europos Parkas (the "Park of Europe") is a 50-hectare open-air museum located 17 km from
Vilnius, Lithuania Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
. The museum gives an artistic significance to the geographic centre of the European continent (as determined by the French National Geographic Institute in 1989) and presents Lithuanian and international
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...
.


Collection

The museum exhibits more than 90 works from 27 countries, including Armenia, Belarus, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Russia, the United States, and Venezuela. The collection includes large-scale works by the contemporary artists
Magdalena Abakanowicz Magdalena Abakanowicz (; 20 June 1930 – 20 April 2017) was a Polish sculpture, sculptor and fiber artist. Known for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium and for outdoor installations, Abakanowicz has been considered among the most influen ...
,
Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
, Ales Vesely and Dennis Oppenheim, among others. Three of the pieces that are most frequently mentioned by the park's international visitors are: * ''LNK Infotree'', by Gintaras Karosas, was included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest artwork. The sculpture, which includes 3,000 television sets, is a 700-meter labyrinth in the form of a tree, with a toppled statue of Lenin in its center. The monument evokes television's power to disseminate propaganda, and the eventual regrowth of the truth. * ''Monument of the Centre of Europe'', by Karosas, is a series of granite plaques on which are chiseled the names of the capital cities of Europe and their distances from the park. * ''Voices Underground'', by Patricia Goodrich, is a multimedia presentation that includes wildflower seeds and flowering bulbs planted on a 300-square-foot site. The audio component includes 44 artists from 15 countries speaking about their artistic journeys, creative processes, and life passages, in English and their native languages. The sculptures are very diverse – from those leaning to the ground to those standing up to ten meters high, from covering just one square meter or others covering 3135 square meters of land. All exhibits weight about 1,000 tons – so much stone, wood, concrete and other materials were used to create the museum in the open air.


History

Europos Parkas was founded by Karosas as a 19-year-old art student. In 1987, he found a place near Vilnius that struck him as a home for his vision, and started landscaping the site. In 1991, Karosas placed the first sculpture at the site. The contribution of a work by the American conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim in 1996 excited international interest in the project. Gintaras Karosas continues to be involved in new contributions: the location of each piece is chosen to harmonize with the site's water features, its surrounding trees, shrubs, and flowers, and its daily patterning of lights and shadows.


Activities

Since 1993, the park has hosted annual International Sculpture Symposias; it hosts international artist-in-residence programs twice a year. Concerts and festivals are held, and a conference center is located at the park.


References


External links

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Artist-in-Residence Programs
{{authority control Modern art museums Museums in Vilnius County Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in Europe Art museums and galleries established in 1991 1991 establishments in Lithuania Art museums and galleries in Lithuania Open-air museums in Lithuania