Art Design Chicago
Legacy of Lithuanian Artists and Designers in Chicago Explored at Balzekas Museum
Artwork on display in “beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now,” an exhibit at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
If you’ve never been to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, now is an opportune time to go on a cultural expedition.
A mile from Midway International Airport, the museum’s third floor gallery is currently filled with “beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now.”
“In the Lithuanian worldwide diaspora, Chicago is still the capital,” curator Victoria Kašuba Matranga told WTTW News.
The abundance of art and design on display — from documentary photographs to wildly ambitious textiles — suggests the outsized impact of one little country whose entire population is smaller than Cook County (about 3 million versus 5 million, if you’re counting).
“It’s a dense exhibit because we’re telling the story of Chicago, the story of Chicago art and design, and the story of Lithuania and individual artists,” Matranga said.
That includes artists and designers like the woman who co-invented Lite-Brite, the popular children’s game. Dalia Ancevicius also created the game Hands Down and worked for Chicago design company Marvin Glass and Associates, makers of Mouse Trap and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
One themed section of the exhibition focuses on “Mythic Feminine,” celebrating the stunning work of important Lithuanian women artists from Chicago. There’s a spotlight on sacred art and even some absurdist offerings among the “Art as Activism” portion of the show.
Artwork on display in “beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now,” an exhibit at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
We asked the curator about the title, “beLONGING.”
“We tried to suggest the teetering between being in one place and the longing for another,” Matranga said. “Juggling your identity in one place and maintaining portions of your identity from another place.”
The exhibition represents three waves of immigrants — from 1900, when Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire, to post-World War II, when it was occupied by the Soviet Union, and after 1990, when it became the first Soviet republic to break away and restore its independence.
During the Soviet presence after World War II, Lithuania lost an elite workforce of its own citizenry.
“It’s estimated that 70% of the cultural class fled,” Matranga said. “Lawyers, doctors, anyone with a college education, professors, musicians, dancers, visual artists, and theater artists — all of those people fled because they knew there would be no creativity possible with the Soviet invasion. It’s estimated that 25,000 to 30,000 came to Chicago in that post-World War II wave, which is just a drop in the bucket.”
Artwork on display in “beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now,” an exhibit at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
Famous Lithuanians with local ties include filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and new Chicago Bulls forward Matas Buzelis. Two former presidents of Lithuania have lived in Chicago, and the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, is the burial site of surgeons, scientists and artists.
“The city was built by immigrants in large part, and all these ethnic groups contributed to what we know as Chicago today,” Matranga said. “We want the exhibition to resonate with people of any background and see how in our case this small group of Lithuanians had the resilience to express their creativity and heritage in a new environment.”
“beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago — 1900 to Now” is at the Balzekas Museum through May 17. It is part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art.
On Saturday, Jan. 11, Matranga will give tours of the exhibition from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Funding for WTTW’s arts coverage as part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration highlighting the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities, is provided in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.
