in a maze. artists / graphic designers 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 Klaipėda Cultural Communication Center, 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.

in a maze is a travelling exhibition, held for the first time this year at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, featuring one-of-a-kind artists’ books from the Graphic Arts Cabinet of the Vilnius University Library. In Klaipėda, these books will be replaced by books by Estonian artists of all ages and books found on the shelves of the archive of the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art. There will also be books/publications by graphic designers studying and working in Estonia that have been realised from conception to implementation.

The exhibition in Klaipėda will include artists’ books, ranging from single copies to editions 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, 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.

Participating artists: 
Donatas Jankauskas (Duonis), Dovilė Šimonytė, Mariana Castillo Deball, Marge Monko, Club Donny magazine (Samira Ben Laloua, Frank Bruggeman and Ernst van der Hoeven), Elena Narbutaitė and Deimantas Narkevičius, OPA! Publishing (Ott Kagovere), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Sophie Calle, Goda Palekaitė, Agnes Isabelle Veevo, Catalog (Lieven Lahaye), Andre Joosep Arming, Ignacy Radtke, ;paranoia publishing (kiwa; Henri Hütt and Evelyn Raudsepp), Francesco Paleari, Francesco Villa, Laura Kuusk, Urtina Hoxha, Andrew J Beltran, Daria Luchinina, Mahmoud Khaled, Florian Bräunlich, Katja Mater, brossura | manual of pirate languages (Dimitra Ioannou, Yiannis I. Andronikidis), Sophie Artz, Trinn Tamm, Oleksandra Hruzynska, Yorgos Sapountzis, Carlo Canún, Dear Friend (Sandra Nuut and Ott Kagovere), Ieva Maslinskaitė, Apian, Viktorija Rybakova, Pierre Satoshi Benoit, Alissa Nirgi, Sayo Senoo

Curator
Marija Repšytė

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.

The exhibition is organised in cooperation with the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Graphic Design Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition will be accompanied by walks and talks (2024 10 12 and 11 10) with the exhibition curator Marija Repšytė, during which the books in the exhibition will be opened.

The exhibition will later move to the Form / Design Centre in Malmö, Sweden.

Image: Ott Kagovere OPA 07 Time to love (2024), published by OPA!