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Abstract
Analysis of the Guggenheim museum’s rhetoric in Vilnius – a case study of a ‘failed’ city planning – provides important material for a broader discussion about neo‐liberal culture, especially with regard to cities of so‐called New Europe. A rhetorical connection between the global museum and a rediscovered Fluxus avant‐garde in the Lithuanian capital became a key component of a new type of culture‐led regeneration campaign. In 2007 Lithuanian Fluxus sentiment became inextricably connected with international partners – the Guggenheim and the Hermitage museums – through the establishing of the Jonas Mekas Visual Art Center. This institutional predecessor of the Hermitage‐Guggenheim museum illuminates a specific way the global museum taps into the local economy and symbolic production. While the specifics of the Lithuanian Guggenheim controversy have their own dynamics, the larger discourses that localize neo‐liberal cultural policy throughout the world are worth broader attention.
Notes
1. The year 2005, for example, saw talk about prospective Guggenheim satellites in Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Taichung, and Guadalajara; the latter two were initially imagined as projects to be realized in cooperation with the Hermitage State Museum (ArtNet Citation2005). None of these have yet become reality.
2. The cooperation agreement between the Guggenheim and Hermitage was signed in June 2000, and at the beginning of 2001 the two museums signed a triangular cooperation agreement with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The SRGF was obligated to help the Hermitage to attract sponsors for the renovation of the museum buildings in St Petersburg and to prepare a feasibility study (GMPO Citation2000).
3. Application I. Vilnius – European Capital of Culture in 2009, p. 30: http://www.lrkm.lt/EasyAdmin/sys/files/VilniusCV_web.pdf [Accessed 15 February 2007] via http://www.vilnius.lt/newvilniusweb/index.php/116/?itemID=34952
4. Application II. Vilnius CV – Creativity and Vitality. A proposal delivered by Lithuanian delegation in April 2005 to the European Commission’s Selection Panel, pp. 4–6. http://www.culturelive.lt/images/form/proposal.pdf
5. It is not an intention in this paper to discuss the failure of Vilnius ECOC urban projects specifically; however, it should be noted that two major and still unfinished ECOC constructions in Vilnius – the Lower Castle and the National Gallery – have been initiated years ago and from the beginning were not connected with the 2009 celebrations.
6. Another politician, Vice‐Minister of Culture Gintaras Sodeika is a self‐declared member of Fluxus in his role as a famous Lithuanian avant‐garde composer.
7. This is true despite the fact that during the last decades in Lithuania there existed widespread artistic interest in Fluxus as well as research into Fluxus international activities (e.g., Laučkaitė Citation2003).
8. For this new ambitious project, Zuokas was able to gather some private support, however vague are the real obligations of the sponsors.
9. After the agreement for the Hermitage‐Guggenheim museum Vilnius feasibility study was signed; the Prime Minister G. Kirkilas sent a congratulatory letter to Krens in which he admitted being ‘convinced that this fact presents a remarkable move forward in the history of Lithuania’ (JMVAC Citation2007b).
10. ‘Vilniaus Vartai’ consists of famous fashion house boutiques, business centers, and ‘leisure oases.’ According to the center’s website, style and fashion reign on its premises, yet the JMVAC presence is not even mentioned, a fact which illustrates the ambivalent relationship between the center of commerce and center of art. See: http://www.vilniausvartai.lt/
11. There is also an obvious tension between promises to ‘comprehensively present a full range of local artists’ (JMVAC Citation2007a) while at the same time claiming to represent the ‘world avant‐garde.’