„in a maze“ artists books and publications

 The exhibition in a maze artists books and publications.

The exhibition in a maze is a relocation of the reading room/bookstore "12:15 Reading Room", founded by the curator of this exhibition Marija Repšytė, to the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, both in terms of the idea and the works of art – books. Most of the books featured in the exhibition can be read, looked through and even bought in this place in Vilnius. The exhibition will try to reveal the development of artists' books in Lithuania by presenting examples of artists' books that reflect this, and to place these books in the context of international artists' books.

The exhibition includes artists’ books of a single copy, kept in the Graphic Arts Cabinet of the Vilnius University Library, or books with a print run of 5000 copies, such as the French artist Sophie Calle's years-long research on blindness and the blind's understanding of beauty. Books in the form of tarot cards, interactive posters, collaborative projects – in the form of magazines, newspapers or postcards – rethinking the present, the problems, the realities or the possible future scenarios. Collage books, riso printing, artistic research in a photo album, music and sound in publications by different artists, a book drawn together by an artist and his child, or publications recording clocks, fountains, or human architecture for bees.

In a maze, it is said, mingles the imagination, and to meet it means to stare at things you do not fully understand. The imagination remakes assumptions, reconfigures the status quo, connects the unconnected, and always entertains the possibility that life might be otherwise. Like Juozas Laivys’ book – Art Idea on the Highway A1 Vilnius - Kaunas. Lithuania – ideas for the future city or Donatas Jankauskas’ (Duonis) “Marčiurlionis”, even though this work was started to create in 1999, is being shown for the first time in this particular museum, the nine books that interact and review the work of the one and only M. K. Čiurlionis, let us reconsider the artist differently – the learned, known, or observed so many times by receiving alternative leads to imagine and reimagine together with Donatas Jankauskas, even with Čiurlionis.

Participating artists: 
Donatas Jankauskas (Duonis), Dovilė Šimonytė, Mariana Castillo Deball, Vincas Kisarauskas, Club Donny magazine (Samira Ben Laloua, Frank Bruggeman and Ernst van der Hoeven), Elena Narbutaitė, Deimantas Narkevičius, Sophie Calle, Goda Palekaitė, Mindaugas Navakas, Ignacy Radtke, Aleksas Andriuškevičius, Francesco Paleari, Francesco Villa, Mahmoud Khaled, Juozas Laivys, Florian Bräunlich, Katja Mater, brossura | manual of pirate languages (Dimitra Ioannou, Yiannis I. Andronikidis), Sophie Artz, Linas Jablonskis, Yorgos Sapountzis, Unknown artist, Žibuntas Mikšys, Rainer Mordmüller, Pierre Migaux, Ieva Maslinskaitė, Apian, Viktorija Rybakova, Sayo Senoo.

The exhibition will be accompanied by walks and talks with the exhibition curator Marija Repšytė, during which the books in the exhibition will be opened. There will also be events by various guests related to the artists' books in the exhibition.

Marija Repšytė is an artist operating in words, exhibitions, and exhibition architecture. After studying painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, she received Fine Art bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Willem de Kooning Academy and Bergen Academy of Art and Design. She has recently curated the exhibitions Timemaker together with Žilvinas Landzbergas at LNMA Pamarys Gallery (2020) and Jurga Barilaitė’s Lines and Wrinkles. Dreams of Living and Delusions of the Dead at Atletika Gallery, Vilnius (2021). She is an art editor of the journal Sphairos, published by the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute and the founder of the art/artist’s book publishing platform 12:15 and 12:15 Reading Room in Vilnius.

Curator
Marija Repšytė

Graphic designer
Jonas Vaikšnoras

Coordinator
Violeta Karmalavičienė

Image: from Yorgos Sapountzis artist’s book In the Moment You Fall Asleep (2019), published by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE

The event is open to the public and will be filmed and photographed. By attending the event you agree to be featured in photographs and videos of the event and are informed that these photographs and videos may be made public.