Egle Budvytyte to Represent Lithuania at 2026 Venice Biennale
Lithuanian-born artist Eglė Budvytytė has been chosen to represent Lithuania at the Sixty-First Venice Biennale, to take place May 9–November 22, 2026. Budvytytė will exhibit a new multichannel film and installation at the event. The pavilion is commissioned by Lolita Jablonskienė, director of Lithuania’s National Gallery of Art, the country’s contemporary and modern art museum; and curated by independent curator Louise O’Kelly, the founding director of international performance art festival and commissioning body Block Universe. (O’Kelly is also Artforum‘s London-based representative). Kārlis Bērziņš of the Riga-based architecture collective ĒTER, who served as a cocurator and codesigner of the Baltic pavilion at the 2016 Biennale, will design the pavilion.
Born in 1981, Budvytytė lives and works in Vilnius and Amsterdam. Her practice encompasses sound, performance, and video, through which she investigates the power of collectivity, vulnerability, and permeable relationships between bodies, audiences, and the environment. Her exhibition at the pavilion is inspired by Lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas’s research into and theories regarding Neolithic spirituality and the indivisibility of the sacred from the everyday.
“I am thrilled and humbled to create a pavilion for the Biennale di Venezia,” said Budvytytė in a statement. “Together with a group of collaborators and kindred spirits, we’re readying for a deep dive into the ideas that have been feeding us in recent years—the intimacies of relations between land and bodies, ritual and the power of collectivity.”
“Having worked with Eglė over several years, I am continually drawn to the depth and authenticity of her inquiry into the practice of embodiment, social relations, and our symbiotic relationship with the environment,” said O’Kelly in a statement. “Eglė’s practice offers a unique worldview that speaks to the significance of ancient belief systems and other ways of knowing and being together—community-centered values that feel more urgent and necessary than ever.”
