The catalogue of the 15th Baltic Triennial at CAC in Vilnius is conceived as a visual book in two parts: one is dedicated to the Prologue, which took place a year prior to the main exhibition; the other documents the Triennial itself. In addition to contributions by Adrianna Glaviano, the book features two poems by Emerson – a figure who emerges from the archive of Greek photographer and writer George Tourkovasilis, and whose poems served as entry points to both the Prologue and the main exhibition.

Edited by Tom Engels and Maya Tounta and designed by Julie Peeters, the book draws formal inspiration from the publications of James Lee Byars.

A monograph on the work of Jiří Kovanda, on which Markéta Stará writes about the book’s production: “(Kovanda’s) aim to dissolve the line between art and life brings him to manipulate familiar objects from the outside world and incorporate them into works that, outside of the gallery context (and sometimes even within it), could easily be overlooked. This near invisibility resonates with Kovanda’s efforts to escape artistic trends and avoid any reductive framing. Although it could be argued that his oeuvre hovers on the border between kitsch and high aesthetics, his goal is to test the possibility of their equivalence and thus to deconstruct the distinction between art objects and utilitarian objects. It is exactly this endeavor that brought Kovanda to use the occasion of the publication of a catalogue to transform the book into an art object and make it the subject of his latest exhibition.”

A monograph on the work of Jiří Kovanda, on which Markéta Stará writes about the book’s production: “(Kovanda’s) aim to dissolve the line between art and life brings him to manipulate familiar objects from the outside world and incorporate them into works that, outside of the gallery context (and sometimes even within it), could easily be overlooked. This near invisibility resonates with Kovanda’s efforts to escape artistic trends and avoid any reductive framing. Although it could be argued that his oeuvre hovers on the border between kitsch and high aesthetics, his goal is to test the possibility of their equivalence and thus to deconstruct the distinction between art objects and utilitarian objects. It is exactly this endeavor that brought Kovanda to use the occasion of the publication of a catalogue to transform the book into an art object and make it the subject of his latest exhibition.”

A monograph on the work of Jiří Kovanda, on which Markéta Stará writes about the book’s production: “(Kovanda’s) aim to dissolve the line between art and life brings him to manipulate familiar objects from the outside world and incorporate them into works that, outside of the gallery context (and sometimes even within it), could easily be overlooked. This near invisibility resonates with Kovanda’s efforts to escape artistic trends and avoid any reductive framing. Although it could be argued that his oeuvre hovers on the border between kitsch and high aesthetics, his goal is to test the possibility of their equivalence and thus to deconstruct the distinction between art objects and utilitarian objects. It is exactly this endeavor that brought Kovanda to use the occasion of the publication of a catalogue to transform the book into an art object and make it the subject of his latest exhibition.”

For decades, Maurizio Nannucci has preserved exhibition invitation cards. The collection comprises both invitations and announcements from artists whose approaches to art are close to his own. Yet many also come from wider circles of artist friends, colleagues, galleries, and museums, allowing a chronology of relationships and information exchanges to emerge. The selection in this volume makes visible how this kind of communication – often conceived by the artists themselves – superimposes the purely informative value of the printed matter with the freedom of artistic expression; evidence of a holistic practice where such cards can become artworks in their own right.

This publication is an unedited reprint of the catalogue originally published by de Appel in 1980 as a follow-up to the international art manifestation Works and Words. The event sought to break with the one-way traffic of Western artists traveling to the East by inviting artists from Eastern Bloc countries to Amsterdam. The invited artists, theoreticians, film-makers, and art historians represented a broad spectrum of practices, theoretical approaches, and developments. Including artists such as; KwieKulik (Zofia Kulik and Przemysłav Kwiek), Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Dóra Maurer, Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis, Mladen Stilinovic, Jozef Robakowski amongst others.

You can find more information on the exhibition here.