“Vilnoja” open-air stone sculpture park
was established in 2001, when its founder Vidmantas Martikonis organized the first symposium of granite sculptures. He invited eight well-known Lithuanian artists to the 4-hectare area: Šarūnas Arbačiauskas, Juozas Genevičiaus, Džiugas Jurkūnas, Darius Bražiūnas, Algirdas Kuzmas, Daumantas Kučas, Kęstutis Musteikis, Arvydas Ališankas, whose sculptures were the first to decorate the park.
In 2002, the symposium became international when sculptors from Latvia, Sweden, Russia, Poland and Byelorussia came to it. Symposia were organized in the park in 2001-2008. During this time, sculptors from twenty countries of the world visited the symposiums.
Currently, over 70 monumental stone sculptures created by artists from all over the world are exhibited in the sculpture park.
Vidmantas Martikonis biography
Vidmantas Martikonis is a businessman, philanthropist, founder of the stone sculpture park “Vilnoja” and the gallery-museum “Autoportretas”.
V. Martikonis has accumulated a large art collection, which includes over 180 works by authors spanning the years 1901-2019. period. Self-portraits from the collection of V. Martikonis or exhibitions of contemporary Lithuanian artists are exhibited in the “Autoportretas” gallery-museum.
“I have been attracted to stone since I was a child. It is like a symbol of eternity. Each stone sculpture is unique, one-of-a-kind and unrepeatable. It may be possible to copy the shape, but not the texture of the stone. Therefore, the sculpture park was started in the summer of 2001. A year later, an annual symposium began to be held, attracting artists not only from the Baltic countries, but also from all over the world. “Vilnoja” makes waves not only through Lithuania, but also beyond its borders, giving sculptors from foreign countries the opportunity to get to know our region and realize their ideas in Lithuanian, extremely open and hard granite,” V. Martikonis.