The first exhibition of the Sapiegas Palace aims to help the palace itself and the stories behind its history unfold. It is like a soft, transparent layer over the spaces of the palace, which have been repainted many times over, revealing that they have been shaped, and continue to be shaped, by many different forces. The exhibition will run until the end of the year and will be constantly changing throughout its run.
The writer Ursula Le Guin once wrote that most stories are straight as an arrow, noisy and dramatic, revolving around heroes, their sufferings, their struggles, their achievements, their tragic outcomes - but that guns and the hunt were invented later than the handful or the scarf for gathering food. The stories of how something is picked up in pieces, brought home, what takes time, what gets lost or what repeats itself day after day, are neither arrows nor spears, although if you take the time to listen to them, they sound not only just as interesting, but also new.
So the walls of the Palace are filled with the most unexpected of stories. Tales of tranquillity, wrists full of sunshine, martial arts and the art of concealment are interspersed with time travel, quarrels with craftsmen and incantations in a secret language.
The title of the exhibition, Shelter, is inspired by the Latin inscription on the façade of the palace that greets visitors, which proclaims that "the magnificent palace, risen from the ruins, will protect the war-weary man of war in tranquil peace".
The building, which was built as a resting place for war-weary heroes, has changed hands and use several times over more than three hundred years, but has been associated with warfare and healing for most of its existence to the present day. It has been a tool and trophy of war, it has housed barracks and a military hospital at various times, and in the inter-war period it was the site of an eye clinic. During the Soviet era, the palace was once again used for war, only this time as a school for military personnel to learn how to use anti-aircraft radars.
The builder of the palace, Kazimieras Jonas Sapiega, was the commander-in-chief of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's armed forces, and therefore the theme of war and peace was particularly important in the palace's decoration. The whole ensemble of the country residence with its park and the later adjacent Trinitarian monastery complex was to reflect the past and future achievements of the Grand Hetman. But over time, the stories of the palace and the Sapiegas family diverged, and today the palace is both a monument to the past and a contemporary work of art that reveals many stories about the past.
As restorers discover more and more traces of the different periods of time within the walls of this palace, the inconsistencies, interruptions, contradictions and the multitude of differing perspectives of the past are also being exposed in this historical narrative. What at one time seemed irrelevant, unwanted or to be destroyed has been reassessed in other times. The many nuances of the past will always remain a mystery. Especially as each narrative also bears witness to individuals and collective voices that have been forgotten or deliberately erased from history. The first exhibition at the Palais seeks to highlight the coexistence of these different narratives and voices, and the various ways of reflecting on the past and the present.
The exhibition also looks back to the Baroque as a period that has left a lasting impression on Western culture. The Baroque in Vilnius - as in much of Europe - emerged in the wake of the city's scourges of war, fire and disease. It was an epoch that discovered fragility, impermanence, and the change of light and darkness in its own way. It was able both to give special importance to the power of man to change the world with his own hands, and to accept with humility the elemental forces that were beyond human control, changing the face of the city and its communities. The Baroque drama of relentless change and heavenly promise, exalted by the Baroque, has continued to resonate with the fires and hopes of later periods.
Juozapas Stanislovas Sapiega, one of the bishops of Vilnius in the 18th century, and a resident of the Sapiega Palace at the time, in his memoirs, describes watching from the windows of the Palace the enormous fire that destroyed a large part of the city. The unbearable sight took his breath away, and although the country residence provided a physical refuge from the disaster that was ravaging the city, his spirit remained shaken. The aim of the exhibition, which develops the motif of shelter, was to select exhibits that would extend or give meaning to this and other narratives related to the history of the palace. The themes of war and refuge, sickness and healing, miracle and calamity, beginning and end, permeate almost all the works in the exhibition.
