MO Museum is a modern art museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. As a private initiative of Lithuanian scientists and philanthropists Danguolė Butkienė and Viktoras Butkus, it functioned as an art museum without walls for about ten years. The collection of 6,000 modern and contemporary pieces contains major Lithuanian artworks from the 1950s to the present day.
The museum was opened to the public on 18 October 2018 in the building designed by Studio Libeskind and the team of Lithuanian architects Do Architects. Total building floor area: 3100 sq.m., height: 17 m. Architect Daniel Libeskind commented that although it is his smallest project, it is also one of his favorites, and he also noted that he used circular form in it for the first time (spiral staircase in the interior). Italian news agency ANSA included Mo Museum into Top 10 21st century museums to visit. The museum hosts numerous exhibitions, film screenings, educational workshops, concerts and other cultural events, which are intended for various age groups.
Prehistory of MO Museum
History of MO. MMC
MO began its work in 2008, when the founders of the museum Viktoras and Danguolė Butkai started their own art collection. Art expert Raminta Jurėnaitė and other art critics agreed to assist with the collection of Lithuanian artworks dating from the 1960s to the present. The MO's collection is distinguished through its reflection of Lithuanian cultural modernization at the beginning of 1960s as well as the slow but continuing cultural liberation, which began after the end of the Stalin era.
The Modern Art Centre (MMC) was founded in 2009 with the intention to open a museum in the future. The active collection of artworks, organized by the MMC, received more attention from the public, which helped raise the interest of collectors and thus assisted in the creation of an art market and the recovery of the arts field in Lithuania.
MMC was orientated not only towards the collection of artworks but also towards education. For this reason, they started publishing art books with the intention to contribute to the Lithuanian education system. Many books on artists and art history by exceptional foreign writers were chosen and published for children. Published books also included translated books for youth and adults as well as albums of great Lithuanian paintings by modernists Arvydas Šaltenis and Kostas Dereškevičius. Later books in MO's collection as well as graphic artworks were published. By the time the MO Museum opened in 2018, the MMC had published over 30 art books for children and adults.
MO Museum is situated in a historically and culturally significant sector of Vilnius city. The defensive embankment of Vilnius is thought to have been located in the 14th century where MO Museum now stands, while the gates of Trakai were built there as a part of a defensive wall in the 16th century. Vingriai, which is located next to the museum, was Vilnius’ main water source and was operative until the 19th century. The “Lietuvos” cinema was built in this location in 1965 and later became a culturally important space for the city, providing culture for its people until 2005.
The construction of the MO Museum, which was funded by Viktoras and Danguolė Butkai, began in the location of the “Lietuvos” cinema in April, 2017. It was the first cultural patronage project of such a large scale in the independent Republic of Lithuania as well as the only private museum of its size.
Art Collection of MO Museum
MO Museum's collection is one of the biggest private collections in Lithuania, which was announced to be of national significance in 2011. The core of the collection are large sets of painting, graphic, photography and video artworks with additional sets of sculpture and interdisciplinary (performance, installation, etc.) artworks. This collection and its context is the base of Lithuanian modern and contemporary art development.
A part of MO's collection is art that was ideologically rejected during the Soviet times and received no attention from the greatest museums in Lithuania because of the political views at that time. The collection introduces those artists who started creating after Lithuania had restored its independence as well. Many of those creators are still working to this day and are well-known artists both in Lithuania and worldwide.