In the painting 'Astronomers' by Igoris Piekuras, depicted is a photograph of the Earth rising over the moon. These photographs changed the vision of the world - it indeed became global, despite its visible and invisible walls. The space race of the Cold War era made an impact not only on the development of science and technology, but also on the field of culture, e.g., in Juozas Mikėnas sculpture 'First Swallows', symbolising man's flight into space. The human individual was placed in the centre of new modernisation projects: 'like a bridge between the Earth and the Sun', as Eduardas Mieželaitis phrased it in his poem 'Man', illustrated by the printmaker Stasys Krasauskas. Further, through the gaze of humanist Lithuanian photographers - Antanas Sutkus, Aleksandras Macijauskas and others - a spot light was also turned on ordinary people, who came to better know their own worth.

The Thaw period, which started in the Soviet empire 1956, also reached Lithuania and with it the flag of modernisation. Factories and electric power stations were built, standardised housing projects went up in cities, trolleybuses were put into operation and television broadcasts started. Artists captured views of urbanisation and industrialisation, making use of monumental forms and wide strokes. Jonas Švažas and Aloyzas Stasiulevičius painted bridges, cranes, radars, railway engines and bulldozers, which approached abstraction in their visual expression. Marija Švažienė conveyed the modernist vibe in her tapestries, as musical rhythms. The Lithuanian American photographer Algimantas Kezys and sculptor Elena - Urbaitytė Urbaitis composed a symphony of a big city through light.

Nonetheless, global modernisation and the fragile view of the Earth from Space could not stop wars and conflicts - the Planet was divided by the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain also divided Lithuanian artists - some of them worked in the occupied homeland, while others fled to the West as war refugees. Yet, both were looking for new ways to articulate this complex and conflicting reality. The sliding wall in the exhibition helps us to compare the subjects and the visual language of Lithuanian and émigré artists. Sofija Veiverytė's paintings of workers and Silvestras Džiaukštas paintings of bodies disfigured by the war, reveal the ideologised worldview of the Soviet era. On the other hand, the pain, mourning and death conveyed may be seen as a part of human experience relevant for people of both sides of the curtain. Kęstutis Zapkus work, 'A Gift to the Underdeveloped Nations' and 'The Protest Demonstration' by Igoris Piekuras are characterised by an antimilitarist mood, while Kazimieras Žoromskis and Vincentas Gečas criticise society using quotes from the history of art in their works.

In Edmundas Zubavičius's documentary film 'We are Not Afraid of any Enemy, about civil defence training', one finds an ironic commentary on the world divided by the Cold War. Together with the exhibited photographs it shows how a documentary take on the world breaks through the surface of the controlled reality.

Meanwhile, the stair construction allows the visitor to think about the complicated process of art modernisation and its contexts - from experimental works by Kazimiera Zimblytė and Juzefa Čeičytė, created on the margins of official art, to mail art and censorship. Additionally, one may observe a conversation between sculptures and paintings, where wooden and bronze heroes are placed opposite a portrait gallery. The artists' self-introspection is strongly related to human existence and reflections on the time in which they lived. Vincas Kisarauskas' 'Seven and a Half Self-Portraits' combine the technology of image multiplication and existential angst in the presence of a totalitarian system where an individual becomes merely a cogwheel in the machine of political oppression. Leonardas Gutauskas' self-portrait symbolically visualises the artist's dualistic embodiments and multi-faceted personality as a writer and a painter. The portrait wall ends with Mary Magdalene stepping out of the painting frame - an assemblage by Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė unfolding the inner spaces of the art work. These split characters try to resist the oppressive ideology by experimenting and using Aesopian language.

Art modernisation in Lithuania was inspired not only by global changes, but also by national tradition, which was continued by Antanas Gudaitis and Augustinas Savickas. The impact of folk and interwar art can be felt in paintings by Valentinas Antanavičius, Leopoldas Surgailis and Saulė Kisarauskienė. It can also be encountered in sculptures by Vladas Vildžiūnas, Jadvyga Mozūraitė-Klemkienė and Dalia Matulaitė. Next to these monumental sculptures and canvases, modular works by Teodoras Kazimieras Valaitis and abstract wooden sculptures by Antanas Mončys come alive.

The abstract 'Octagon' by Kazys Varnelis was also inspired by folk ornaments. This painting serves as a kind of key to modernisation, connecting its different modes. It generalises the changed optics of that time, which was opened by the 'Childhood Memories' series by Rimtautas Vincentas Gibavičius at the beginning of the exhibition - a work reflecting a new vision of the world inspired by reproduction technologies.