In response to a shifting global museum landscape, marked by decentralization, institutional self-reflection, and the rethinking of cultural authority, MO Museum in Vilnius has established an International Art Advisory Board. The initiative marks a new phase in the museum’s development, aimed at strengthening long-term curatorial thinking and deepening dialogue between the local collection and international contemporary art discourse.
Founded in 2018, MO Museum is a private institution dedicated to modern and contemporary Lithuanian art, holding a collection of more than 6,500 works dating from the 1960s to today. Alongside exhibitions, MO has positioned itself as a platform for education, public engagement and research. By 2025, the museum has collaborated with over twenty-five international institutions, including Centre Pompidou in Paris, with a joint exhibition planned for 2028. As part of the museum’s expanding vision, board members from leading European institutions will help shape its curatorial direction and deepen the dialogue with global audiences.
The board brings together Gražina Subelytė, Curator at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Philipp Ziegler, Head of the Curatorial Department at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe; and Andreas Nilsson, Curator at Moderna Museet, Malmö. They join Milda Ivanauskienė, Director of MO Museum, and Miglė Survilaitė, Chief Curator, forming an advisory structure that bridges Baltic and international perspectives.
According to Ivanauskienė, the establishment of the board is tied to the museum’s institutional maturity: “After seven years of activity, we reached a stage where sustaining high exhibition quality and building long-term international partnerships required a new structure of thinking that includes external perspectives and experience. The Art Advisory Board ensures critical dialogue and helps us maintain ambitious standards while remaining open and responsive.”
MO Museum does not maintain a permanent display; instead, it develops thematic exhibitions drawn from its collection and international loans. This model has shaped the role of the board, which engages with exhibition ideas at an early stage and contributes to curatorial development through dialogue rather than directive authority. As Survilaitė notes, “The board supports an inclusive idea-generation process involving the entire museum team. It helps us think globally while staying grounded in the specificity of our context.”
Reflecting on the advisory role, Gražina Subelytė emphasizes process and dialogue: “The board allows for early, in-depth engagement with exhibition ideas and fosters an open, collaborative curatorial exchange. What I value most is MO Museum’s openness—its willingness to test ideas, invite critical reflection, and actively rethink how contemporary art engages with its audiences.”
For Philipp Ziegler, MO represents a broader institutional proposition: “MO Museum demonstrates how a collection-based, privately funded institution can remain ambitious and socially engaged without resorting to blockbusters and crowd-pleasers. It balances public engagement with curatorial independence, offering a model that many European institutions navigating shrinking public resources can learn from.”
Andreas Nilsson highlights the reciprocal nature of the board: “An advisory structure like this works best as a two-way exchange. It brings in external perspectives while also allowing ideas to be tested across different institutional cultures. Such dialogue not only shapes MO Museum’s program, but also enriches the thinking of everyone involved.”
Central to the board’s work is MO Museum’s collection of Lithuanian art, which provides a strong and specific foundation for international dialogue. The museum’s exhibitions frequently combine collection works with temporary loans, using exhibition architecture and narrative structures to address broad social and cultural questions. Board members underline the importance of further positioning this collection within transnational conversations, without diluting its local specificity.
The launch of the International Art Advisory Board reflects a broader understanding of the museum not as a static repository, but as a living network of relationships between artworks, institutions, publics, and ideas. From Vilnius, MO Museum proposes an institutional model in which global relevance is built through dialogue, collaboration, and sustained curatorial exchange rather than geographic centrality.
