Art book fair + Japanese photobook exhibition

In cooperation with EU Japan

Fair and exhibition working hours:

7th October, 11 AM – 7 PM

8th October, 10 AM – 6 PM

Kaunas Art Book Fair is accessible for visitors with reduced mobility.

Events will be held in Lithuanian and/or English.

Entry to the fair and its events is free of charge.

Some events require pre-registration.

Kaunas Art Book Fair is a value-creating and networking event that focuses exclusively on the culture of art book publishing, the creation of a new community, the support of the existing one and the initiation of global trends in Lithuania.

The mission of this project is to cultivate and nurture a community of art book readers, viewers, publishers and creators in Lithuania, creating a platform for meeting and dialogue with the general public.

The vision is to become the leading art publication event in the Baltic countries.

Kaunas Art Book Fair is organised and the educational programme is curated by Kaunas Photography Gallery.

Fair participants

Artbooks.lt (LT)

Hands on Press (LT)

Lexie Owen (Canada)

Ona Marija Vidūnaitė (LT)

Vilnius Academy of Arts Kaunas Faculty Graphics department (LT)

Publishing house Aukso žuvys (LT)

Inga Armonaitė (LT)

Kaunas Photography Gallery (LT)

Lithuanian Cultural Research Institute (LT)

Polly Binds (LT)

Dalia Bieliūnaitė (LT)

Justina Česnauskaitė (LT)

Bookshop Keistoteka (LT)

Publishing house Misteris Pinkmanas (LT)

Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) (LT)

Francesco Lusa (Italy/Germany)

Bookshop Kolibris (LT)

M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art (LT)

Tapekiosk (LT)

An online bookstore where you can find art and culture publications published in Lithuania. The bookstore offers a selection of publications in Lithuanian and English on visual art, design, film, performing arts, theory, philosophy and other topics. The virtual shelves of the bookstore are constantly replenished with publications directly from the printing house, as well as with older, equally valuable publications. Artbooks.lt cooperates with more than 25 publishers in Lithuania, offering over 200 different titles. Artbooks.lt is also a small publishing house with four books published.

https://artbooks.lt/

It is a publishing house that publishes books on historical topics, aims to popularise Lithuanian and world history, seeks new ways to present it to the public, to update significant Lithuanian events and personalities, and supports and encourages initiatives of authors. The publishing house cooperates with historians, writers and artists. Newest release – Saulius Grybkauskas‘ "Complaints for Moscow. Secret Letters of the Nomenclature" (2023).

www.auksozuvys.lt

Illustrator and comic book author. For more than five years she has been working on cultural themes, exhibiting, illustrating, drawing comics and writing children's books. Her illustrations have been published in Magazines for Kaunas "Į", appreciated at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. At the fair, the artist will present commemorative postcards and illustrated books, and will sell original comic drawings of famous artists from Kaunas, which were exhibited in the author's solo exhibition "Kaunas Artists' Adventures" at Kaunas City Museum in 2022. Newest publication by the author – "Stories of Kastukas" (2023) – a comic book about the composer and artist Mykolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis.

https://www.behance.net/daliabieliunaite

Italian artist based in Berlin, utilizing an interdisciplinary approach in his work, which spans photography, sculpture, installations, texts, and archive materials. Lusa‘s most recent publication – "The Tree Which Has Been Struck 3 Times by Lightning" (2022) – is the culmination of six years of research conducted in Lithuania.

https://francescolusa.com

It is an analogue print and self-publishing studio located in the centre of Kaunas. The studio on K. Donelaičio Street is run by two pairs of hands – designers and illustrators Gabriele and Inga – who love analogue printing techniques and strive to present them in inventive ways. "Hands on press“ offers services in risography, screen printing, fine printing (linen, woodcut, etc.), bookbinding and publication design, illustration and workshops.

www.handsonpress.lt

Using mixed media printmaking techniques, the author creates postcards and prints for Kaunas, Vilnius, Neringa and other places in Lithuania with architectural and historical heritage.

Illustrator working on various illustration projects: books, educational games, museum exhibition illustration. The author will be presenting postcards and posters of her work at the fair.

www.justinacesnauskaite.com

Founded in 1979, Kaunas Photography Gallery is one of the most active galleries in the country, promoting the art of photography not only in Lithuania but also abroad. The gallery is constantly looking for new forms of presenting photography, organising exhibitions, residencies and bookmaking workshops for professional and emerging artists, and has been publishing photography books and magazines for over a decade. The publications of Kaunas Photography Gallery include acclaimed representatives of classical Lithuanian photography (Antanas Sutkus, Virgilijus Šonta, Vitas Luckus) and local and foreign artists implementing contemporary art projects (Indrė Šerpytytė, Joan Fontcuberta, Ieva Stankutė). Newest publication – "Women's Workshop" (edited by Cale Garrido, 2023)

kaunasgallery.lt

A bookstore with 10 years of history, two cats and two shops in Vilnius. The bookshop gives books a second life and a platform for cultural events.

keistoteka.lt

A bookshop with shelves full of carefully selected books, established to promote publications from various publishing houses, not forgetting individual publishers.

https://www.kolibrioknygos.lt/

Canadian artist currently based in Oslo, Norway. This autumn she is launching a small publishing house pillowfortpress. In her own practice the artist makes limited edition risoprint artist books, collective and collaborative publications, and primarily focuses on queer and feminist topics. Her most recent publication was made in collaboration with a group of 15 teenagers at Kalaci, The Eduarda Veidenbaums museum in Latvia as part of an ongoing project of the museum "More Light".

www.lexieowen.com

LCRI is a research institution with the status of a state research institute. The Institute's researchers study the historical development of Lithuanian culture, art and philosophy, its peculiarities and links with the history and development of contemporary and world culture. LCRI prepares histories of Lithuanian culture and its components – art, music, theatre, philosophy – and analyses the dissemination of contemporary Lithuanian culture and its individual spheres, as well as their interaction with the political and social development of the state. The Institute has its own publishing centre, where most of the Institute's scientific output is prepared for the press: monographs, collections of articles, continuing publications ("Lithuanian Culture Studies", "Cultural Studies", "Ancient Baltic Culture", "Studies in the History of Art", "Athena") and periodicals ("Menotyra", "Sovijus"), studies of the heritage of religious culture, and others. Newest publication – "Raimundas Majauskas: The Longing for Colourful Harmony" (2023).

lkti.lt

This is a new publishing house for children's books, represented by illustrator and publisher Lina Itagaki. The fair showcases 7 of the publisher's books, the latest of which, "The Girl with the Gun", published in June 2023, is illustrated by L. Itagaki herself. In addition to Itagaki's work, personal artworks by Viktorija Ežiukas, one of the illustrators of one of the books, will also be available for purchase.

https://pinkmanas.com/

The M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art is the only place in the world where almost the entire creative legacy of the most famous Lithuanian painter, composer, writer and public figure M. K. Čiurlionis (1875–1911) is collected. The museum's activities include the collection, recording, research, preservation, conservation, restoration and publicity of fine art and cultural treasures; educational activities, cultural events, excursions; publishing activities; digitisation and publicity of exhibits; international cooperation; the museum's archive and library.

ciurlionis.lt

At the fair, the artist will present her creative project "Heliathus", in which drawings are accompanied by poetry.

heliathus.com

Creations by "Polly Binds" are sustainable handmade notebooks, created using old book covers. Libraries, bookshops and individuals throw away large quantities of books every day. The blocks of these books can be recycled. As the composition of the book cover is mixed, it is rarely recycled, but these covers are often well preserved and can be turned into unique one-off pieces with a unique design and a cosy book feel. Notebooks may retain original illustrations or photographs. Notebooks can be customised with a wide range of designs and paper solutions, becoming work calendars, recipe books, sketch books.

https://www.instagram.com/pollybinds/

Since its foundation in 1992, the Contemporary Art Centre has been publishing various publications related to its exhibition programme. Initially, these were mainly exhibition catalogues, but later on they were also artists' books, theoretical essays and retrospective albums of the CAC's activities. Between 2005 and 2013, the CAC also published a bilingual periodical "CAC Interviews". To date, the CAC's catalogue of publications includes more than 100 publications. The most recent book published by the Centre is "Conversations on Lithuanian Contemporary Art" edited by Asta Vaičiulytė (2022).

cac.lt

An online cassette store and label founded in Kaunas by sound artist Armantas Gečiauskas. Tapekiosk sells blank audio cassettes, music and video cassettes, CDs, vinyls, as well as experimental and adventurous electronic music on cassettes, and offers a cassette duplication service.

https://tapekiosk.com/

The Department of Graphic Arts of Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts, which has been operating since 2004, offers Applied Graphic Arts and Illustration study programmes, which aim to educate artists who are able to make professional and creative use of conceptual and functional graphic arts technologies and expression, and then to find, improve and experiment in their own unique styles, in order to become a professional illustrator/creative artists.

The programmes reveal the qualities of printmaking as an independent, multidisciplinary field of art, as well as a flexible means of visual communication. Illustration studies place particular emphasis on original styles and techniques. After graduation, artists create prints, participate in art exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad with interdisciplinary creative projects, work in the fields of publishing, visual communication, illustrate books, create posters, visual art images, etc.

During the fair, the Department of Graphic Arts of the Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts will invite you to get acquainted with the recent works of students, debut books and new creative works.

www.vda.lt

Educational programme

Location: Kaunas Photography Gallery, Vilniaus str. 2

6th October, Friday

6:00 PM Exhibition of selected art publications "The Artist Book" in the reading room of Kaunas Artists’ House (Putvinskis str. 56)

11 AM 7 PM Fair and Japanese photobook exhibition working hours

7th October, Saturday

12:00 AM Presentation of the book “The Girl with a Gun. A True Story about a Partisan Girl” and creative workshop for children with illustrator Lina Itagaki

Recommended for children 6–11 years of age. No registration is required

“Magdė has a bow, a turkey feather in her hair and even a mustang. She reads books about Indians with her dad, knows the footprints of forest animals, and has an Indian name - Pathfinder. Because her dad was a scout leader, the girl knows how to hide footprints, make a hook out of a needle and bake fish in clay,” writes author Marius Marcinkevičius about the partisan girl in the book. When Magdė's parents are kidnapped by the Russian army during the Second World War, the girl retreats to the forest and, living in a bunker, learns to take care not only of herself, but also of her wounded friends.

In a workshop inspired by this book, illustrator Lina Itagaki will introduce children to the footprints of the animals that live in Lithuania, teaching them to distinguish between a wolf's and a dog's footprints, a wild boar's from a moose's. Using imagination and tools provided in advance, children will create their own fictional animal and its footprint.

Lina Itagaki (b. 1979) is an illustrator, comic book and zine author and founder of the children's book publishing house Misteris Pinkmanas

2:00 PM Presentation of Rūta Junevičiūtė’s book “Aisopika”. Moderated by Agnė Bagdžiūnaitė

4:00 PM "Kaunas Summer Diary" presentation by "Hands on Press" resident Julia Nascimento. Moderated by Kotryna Lingienė

The first participant of the "hands on residency" programme, Brazilian illustrator Julia Nascimento, shares in her travel diary the moments of the summer of 2023 in Kaunas and invites locals and future visitors to see this cosy and lively city through her eyes. The result of Julia's residency is a new publication about Kaunas and the first-time traveller's experience of the city, full of surprisingly pertinent and aptly unexpected insights, quirky incidents and recommendations for good places to visit. During Kaunas Art Book Fair, Julia will return to Kaunas for a short time to talk about her artistic practice, her experiences in Kaunas, and to launch her comic book, which was published in August.

7:30 PM Screening of the movie “Library”, dir. Kristijonas Vildžiūnas, Lithuania, 1997 (duration 35 mins) / initiated by Contemporary Art Centre (CAC)

11 AM – 5 PM Exhibition of selected art publications "The Artist Book" in the reading room of Kaunas Artists’ House (V. Putvinskio str. 56)

8th October, Sunday

10 AM 6 PM Fair and Japanese photobook exhibition working hours

12:00 AM Presentation of the book “The Little Pirate and the Big Treasure” and creative workshop for children with illustrator Lina Itagaki

Recommended for children 6–11 years of age. No registration is required

Author Marius Marcinkevičius writes: “The great inventor Professor Lump of Mind created the pigtail screwdriver, the chachatron, the thought radio, the dream player, but most of all he loved to cross-breed: his garden was full of leguminous grapes, columbines and thorny, fragrant rosaceous plants. And once, by crossing a pumpkin and a balloon, he grew a huge flying pumpkin.” But then the Professor's flying pumpkin was hijacked by the Little Pirate, who, instead of robbing it, persuades the Professor to search for the Great Pirate's treasure. Such an adventure is not without its dangers...

Illustrator Lina Itagaki will reveal how to overcome these dangers and where to find the great pirate treasure. In a workshop inspired by the book, children will use Professor’s Lump of Mind cross-breeding method to create a one-piece body for the pirate from the individual parts they drew.

Lina Itagaki (b. 1979) is an illustrator, comic and zine author, and founder of the children's book publishing house Misteris Pinkmanas.

2:00 PM Presentation of Francesco Lusa’s book “The Tree Which Has Been Struck 3 Times by Lightning”

“The Tree Which Has Been Struck 3 Times by Lightning” (2022) is a story about Lithuania, narrated by a non-Lithuanian photographer. According to the artist, working on this project gave him the opportunity to engage with a country and a culture that were originally not his own, but became a significant part of his existence.

During the production of this work the author was interested in several topics such as the industrialization process during the Soviet occupation that led to the urban and social development of the territory itself, the economic crisis after the nation’s independence, the crime that marked the history of the area in the 90s and the wounds left by the Soviet regime to the nation and its people.

He was also deeply fascinated by the confrontation / clash between generations, not too distant in terms of time but profoundly different in desires and hopes for their future, the strength that accompanies young people in the challenge of life and their unconscious naturalness that transmits vitality even in the darkest moments. In 2021 the project won a research grant from the Lithuanian Council for Culture

Francesco Lusa (b. 1980) is an italian artist based in Berlin, utilizing an interdisciplinary approach in his work, which spans photography, sculpture, installations, texts, and archive materials.

3:00 PM Creative workshop for children with artist Ieva Stankutė

Recommended for children of 6–11 years.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED: https://forms.gle/FAhusbz9CuAdREEX9

On Sunday afternoon, the little ones will have a creative workshop with graphic artist Ieva Stankutė, during which children will create stories from various objects found in nature– leaves, bones, concordia and other strange foundings. The children will illustrate their stories in books prepared by the artist, which they can finish at home if they wish.

Ieva Stankutė is a graphic artist based in Kaunas. In 2020, her book "About the Belly Button", which explores the theme of motherhood, was awarded the main prize of the year at the Book Art Competition. The jury praised the book for its unseen, extraordinarily strong, sensory experience of life and, at the same time, the immense warmth captured in the book in both literal and figurative senses. The author draws a lot of inspiration from artworks and coincidences that happen by accident.

5:00 PM Presentation of Renata Karvelis' book "City and Artist. Cultural Routes of Tauragė". Moderated by Kotryna Lingienė

Together with the publication of Renata Karvelis's artistic Research on Tauragė, the Museum of Tauragė Region "Santaka" has published the author's book "The Artist and the City. Cultural Routes of Tauragė". The book intertwines stories, ideas and images about the city of Tauragė.

The author publishes texts written during her stay in Tauragė from 2019 to 2023. The first texts were published on her personal Facebook profile, without thinking about the specific community they are addressed to, without feeling much responsibility for her words, as they do not have the power to change, to influence, to shape. Later, the texts change. The author reflects on the struggle, the war, everyday challenges, and delves into cultural phenomena. In the enlightened work, specific contexts, characteristic only for Taurage, appear.

Ethnologist Aurelija Dagilytė-Drevel on "The Artist and the City“: "Renata's book is a subtly subjective atlas of Tauragė's cultural life, a feminine gaze that throws a feminine light over the ephemeral realities of the city's cultural life in the (post)pandemic years, enlightened by the landmarks of geographic objects. From journalism to slam, from graffiti to the history of cemeteries, the author introduces the artists of Tauragė to each other and to the rest of Lithuania. The text is not lacking in rich self-reflection, a sharper critical approach to the "big" Lithuanian culture, glocal and global influences, identities and opinions. A wonderful book about another, often invisible, cultural Lithuania!"

Renata Karvelis (b. 1988) is a writer, works in a museum and lives in Tauragė. The author's texts have been published in cultural media publications since 2018.

Kaunas Artists’ House has only recently started collecting art books produced by artists, printed in small editions. These are publications rarely found in libraries or bookstores. An artist's book is a work of art, an exhibition, a fragment of artistic research, an introduction to the artist's work.

In the reading room of Kaunas Artists' House you will find publications by Gabrielė Vetkinaitė, Saulė Noreikaitė, Monika Janulevičiūtė, Karolina Rybačiauskaitė, Margarita Žigutytė, Dovilė Šimonytė, Gerda Paliušytė and other authors.

"Aisopika" an artistic research project developed since 2018 by artist Rūta Junevičiūtė which investigates Aesopian language and its intergenerational connections. The publication documents and extends an exhibition of the same name Junevičiūtė implemented in the National Gallery of Art in 2020, and experiments with the formats of an exhibition catalogue, para-academic study and an illustration book.

Rūta Junevičiūtė is an artist and researcher from Vilnius, who lives part-time in Amsterdam. She studied art history, monumental painting, sculpture, dance and choreography, received her education at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Amsterdam Academy of Theater and Dance (School of New Dance Directions SNDO). In recent years, Junevičiūtė has been exploring the body as an archive of senses and intergenerational connections. Her recent works have been presented at "Veem House of Performance", "Frascati" and "de Brakke Grond" theaters in Amsterdam, Vilnius Biennale of Performance Art, National Gallery of Art and "Rupert" Art Center in Vilnius.

Team

Gabrielė Arlauskaitė

“Kaunas Art Book Fair 2023” Chief Executive Director / Curator of Educational Programme

kaunasartbookfair@gmail.com

Daiva Juonytė

Media relations

presskaunasartbookfair@gmail.com

Jonas Vaikšnoras

Designer

Donatas Stankevičius

Architect of the fair

Huge thanks to: Gintarė Krasuckaitė, Gintaras Česonis, Kaunas Art Book Fair volunteer team.

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