multivocality. If that one artist comes, everyone runs under his flag and molds according to the forms he shows. Of course I might be exaggerating, but you get the idea. I think that the notion of the “alternative” is not productive anymore, because it is diffused in the Internet and global travel currents. I often hear doubts whether Lithuanian art criticism exists. I would ask instead: are there Lithuanians who critique art professionally? What’s the difference if they write locally or globally? I think the alternative depends on the point of view. There is no sense in drawing alternative lines while choosing Vilnius or its institutions as the point of departure anymore. These times are gone, and those who still try to do it just keep running in circles or get stuck in their own swamp. In the context of the global networked art space, all the things that are happening here are little alternatives, no matter how much they try to look big and significant. On the other hand, every art organisation even in the smallest town in Europe can be very interesting and important due to its specific nature. This is especially evident in the Netherlands, and even in Slovenia or Serbia there are small active organisations that focus on one sphere and function perfectly. K. Š.: Perhaps. I am not competent to speak about foreign initiatives. V. M.: In your book Alytus Avant-garde, you and Diržys claim that the LTMKS is not an alternative anymore. Could you expand on that and reveal your contribution to annihilating the alternative? What is the LTMKS in relation to creative unions? What is it in relation to the spaces that display art? How can an organisation which has an already written (or in-process) history of its own be alternative? Although we did not take part in many of the events mentioned in the first volume and did not have anything
in common with them. We simply came, wrote everything down, and institutionalised them in time and context. K. Š.: Well, this is related with the aforementioned prolonged 90s and the fact that the LTMKS was established as an alternative to the existing context at the time, perhaps that of the Lithuanian Artists’ Union (in terms of values and power). Whether we want it or not, we have inherited this image of the Association both as its members and as individually active “agents”. And this aspect still occasionally comes up in the discussions of the LTMKS board. We have long been discussing it inside the Association: are we an “alternative” (in this case, to whom or what?) or do we just seek to become established like any other union, like the Artists’ Union, for instance? Because the context is obviously changing, the nineties seem to have ended or at least are drawing to an end. In any case, the question of the Association’s identity remains unsolved, for instance, when we accept new members. Every time there is an internal dispute, and we do not reach any concrete results, although there is always this smoke of “the alternative” in our discussions, and not only from my side. The formal trump card of “interdisciplinarity” does not work in itself anymore as well. Speaking of my own contribution to the annihilation of alternatives, I can repeat what I have said already: since 2009, when I joined the Association, my status in the system of power has strongly shifted upwards from the position of a “loser”. In a sense, yours has too. We have turned or are turning from (supposed) alternatives into institutions both as individuals (in the sense of image) and by getting increasingly entangled, consciously or accidentally, with certain power structures. I personally stopped being an alternative to anyone when I started officially working at the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Centre, in late 2012 or early 2013. I became an insti21