Pleasure – Janina Sabaliauskaitė’s exhibition about disability and sexuality at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art

At 6 pm Friday, 23 May, the Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the LNMA opens an exhibition Pleasure by Janina Sabaliauskaitė, a young photography artist pursuing the theme of sexuality. At the centre of the exhibition curated by Monika Kalinauskaitė is bodily pleasure, love to oneself and others as experienced and expressed by humans with all kinds of disability. On the opening evening, visitors will be treated to a diverse artistic program ranging from performance art to musical acts. Alexandra Gushcha will invite you to a storytelling performance, Eglė Kučinskienė will read poetry, Ernesta Žemaitytė will present a short acting piece titled "Finding Yourself," and Laura S. will perform a musical piece on electric guitar. The total duration of the program is approximately 40 minutes. 

“Janina Sabaliauskaitė, the artist of the young generation, creates artistic photography that gives voice to the communities as of yet kept very silent in Lithuanian photography. This Radvila Palace Museum’s exhibit of her most recent series of analogue prints emerges as a space, safe and accessible to all for opening up and for sharing a diversity of experiences, identities, forms of bodily expression and intimacy. As such, it adds a significant thematic thread to the narrative of a contemporary art museum,” Justina Augustytė, director of the Radvila Palace Museum of Art says.   

Pleasure as liberation from duties and roles

Janina Sabaliauskaitė, working from Lithuania and Great Britain, subtly documents the life of LGBTQ+ community, the expression of their sexuality, joy and of communal spirit. To pursue issues of identity and gender, she dives into the themes of the erotic, of sexual education, and of disability. Her art is about intimacy and collaboration. The artist openly explores the relationships within the queer feminist society and the aesthetics of vitality.  

The exhibition Pleasure, like other projects by the artist, started from conversations and attention to her models. The project records some of the most touching and powerful moments in the life of eleven participants, evocative of self-love, passion and eroticism, of attraction, potency, dreams, challenges and desires. All of these images are linked not only by the theme of sexuality. Disability - another phenomenon, often in the shadow of society life, also comes out in the prints. The exhibition underscores that life with disability, disfunction and individual needs is as diverse and unpredictable as any other, thus, in order to help these humans to live their life to the full, not depriving them of interaction, movement, sex, culture and entertainment, all these aspects of life have to be organized outside one “universal” norm, which disregards those frail or in constant pain. 

“To me, sexuality is dignity. It is a revolt, playfulness, exploration, relationship, and many other things. It is a refusal to carry an eternal guilt for your desires and a power of will to discard a compelled perspective of asexuality. To me it is a declaration that we want to love and to make love,” Žygimantas Menčenkovas, one of the participants of the project, says. 

The display speaks about the potential of pleasure hidden in our bodies. As a liberating force, it allows one to withdraw from duties and roles, to approach others who feel that force, and to embrace the diversity of the world. The artist invites to step out of the box and to create a space to the sexuality within all bodies and to all kinds of expression of pleasure. 

“The exhibition is very important to me personally. It is all about trying to listen carefully and noticing people with disability, about their pursuit of sexuality and pleasure, and experience. Working with this exhibition I want to create an emancipation space for humans with disability, which would allow them to bring forth their experience and to share their stories. I believe that our collaboration, full of sympathy and confidence, will also enable others,” Janina Sabaliauskaitė speaks of her intent.        

The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events, meetings with project participants, education activities and tours. Efforts are put to make the display and the activities accessible to all groups of visitors. 

The exhibition showcases explicit art photography, analysing themes of sexuality, body and intimacy. Its content is not recommended to visitors under 14. Younger visitors are invited to see the exhibition under adult supervision. 

The exhibition at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the LNMA will be on until 28 September. 

Organizers: Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the LNMA, VšĮ Menininkių projektai

Project funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture

Project participants: Živilė Bagdonavičiūtė, Lina Bastytė, Alexandra Gushcha, Julius and Tanya, Laura K., Simonas Kriaučiūnas, Eglė Kučinskienė, Žygimantas Menčenkovas, Laura S., Ernesta Žemaitytė

Curator Monika Kalinauskaitė

Coordinator Audrius Jerašius

Graphic designer Domantas Pigulevičius