The first creative biography of Antanas Kazakauskas (1937–2019): from the first advertising projects created in the 1960s, examples of book series designs, conceptually foreign collages, and graphic design experiments in the magazine Mūsų gamta (Our Nature) to abstract graphic art prints that have not been made public until now.
This is a book about Antanas Kazakauskas – the most mysterious character that I have discovered while researching the history of Lithuanian graphic design. With the help of investigation and reconstruction, I aimed to reveal the entirety of his work: to see the seemingly programmed Kazakauskesque codes, repetitions, various coincidences, and signs. At first, his choice to defend a graduation graphic art work in the field of advertising in 1962 seemed accidental, yet eventually his importance and brilliance as a pioneer was revealed.
Karolina Jakaitė
The Polish artist Roman Cieślewicz, influential among printmakers in the Communist-ruled states, crossed the Iron Curtain in 1963 and proceeded to create Western Modernism. The Lithuanian Antanas Kazakauskas turned the blind iron into translucent nylon, which made it possible to see what was going on the other side of the Curtain, albeit dimly. What prevails in Kazakauskas’ images: Soviet reality or echoes of Western life? Having brought together the whole of Kazakauskas’ oeuvre, Karolina Jakaitė sees and presents it as a remarkable source of modernisation of the Soviet Lithuanian culture.
Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Book reviewed by:
prof. dr. (hp) Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
dr. Jolita Liškevičienė
Exhibition commemorating Antanas Kazakauskas at the Vilnius Graphic Art Centre was curated by: Julijus Balčikonis, Karolina Jakaitė
Compilers of the catalogue of works: Evelina Atminytė, Karolina Jakaitė
Art editor: Julijus Balčikonis
Designer: Tadas Karpavičius
Publishing and Еxhibition project initiated by: Family of Antanas Kazakauskas and
Vilnius Graphic Art Centre
Project coordinator: Jurga Minčinauskienė
Lithuanian text editor: Audra Kairienė
Translator: Laima Bezginaitė
English Editor: Jurij Dobriakov
Financed by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius Municipality, Family of Antanas Kazakauskas
The book was published in cooperation with Vilnius Academy of Arts
