At MO Museum – one of Lithuania’s leading contemporary art institutions – a new major exhibition turns its attention to the youngest adult generation. Gen Z. All at Once, curated by Michal Novotný and co-curated by Marius Armonas, brings together twenty artists born between 1993 and 2001, who were born and live and/or work in countries across Central and Eastern Europe: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Hungary.

Rather than offering a single narrative, the exhibition invites visitors to explore the diversity of artistic approaches emerging from a generation shaped by digital technologies, climate anxiety, changing ideas of identity and work, and the renewed reality of war.

A new generation in focus at MO museum

According to MO Museum director Milda Ivanauskienė, the project began as a conversation about Lithuanian and Czech art during a visit to National Gallery Prague, but soon expanded into a broader regional perspective. “For MO Museum, this exhibition reflects a desire to open new dialogues – to move beyond dominant Western art narratives and explore artistic processes along less familiar paths,” she says.

Curator Michal Novotný’s interest in this generation began nearly a decade ago while teaching at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, where he noticed a distinctly new type of student entering the classroom. Over time, he came to see them as the first generation to spend most of their adolescence on social media – something that profoundly shaped their self-perception and sense of identity.

A new generation in focus at MO museum

One of the defining features of Gen Z, he says, is the merging of digital and physical realities. In this environment, public and private, intimacy and exposure, production and leisure are no longer separate but coexist simultaneously: “Generation Z has grown up within this permeability. For them, contradiction is not a problem to be resolved, but a structural condition. It is no longer either/or, but both.”

Rather than presenting a fixed portrait of a generation, the curators chose to focus on individual artistic perspectives. Although the participants come from eleven countries, they do not aim to represent their nations as a whole. Instead, the exhibition developed as an open-ended process of discovery. In this way, its themes and connections emerged gradually through research, ultimately guiding the selection of artists and works.

The result is a timely and thought-provoking exhibition that highlights individual artistic voices while also asking what connects a generation coming of age in an era of constant acceleration and uncertainty.

A new generation in focus at MO museum

Gen Z. All at Once
On display until 30 August, 2026

MO Museum
Pylimo str. 17, LT-01141 Vilnius, Lithuania
Hours: Wednesday–Monday 10am–8pm

www.mo.lt

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