Shaping The Future. Environments by Aleksandra Kasuba - Aleksandra Kasuba

More than an exhibition catalogue, Shaping the Future: Environments by Aleksandra Kasuba is rather a detailed book about the creative legacy of Aleksandra Fledžinskaitė-Kašubienė (Kasuba, 1923–2019), spanning seven decades. The driving force behind the exhibition and the catalogue’s publication was the unique collection of Kasuba’s works, created between 1942–2019 and donated to the Lithuanian National Museum of Art from 2014 to 2019. It revealed an extraordinarily broad panorama of the artist and visionary’s creative interests: from her early textiles, ceramic tile panels, mosaics, paintings, watercolours, projects and sketches for public installations in the United States to one-of-a-kind spatial environments – tensile fabric dwellings. The collection also contains architectural models, including that of the residential building with a guest house built in the New Mexico desert and 8000 digital images of originals currently housed in the Archives of American Art. Aleksandra Kasuba is a unique artist whose extraordinary biography has the potential to become a source of inspiration for many researchers. Art historian and critic Sandra Skurvida (USA) writes: “Torn from her pastoral childhood in Lithuania and tossed across the ruins of Europe, she arrived in America and progressed from a frugal immigrant family life in Queens to a degree of establishment in Manhattan, until her final move West, to New Mexico, in pursuit of an opportunity to realize her construction concept – to build according to her method using tensile membranes – and die in peace.”

The catalogue offers the opportunity to learn more about the artist, both biographically and in terms of art history and theory; in addition, her work is presented in the context of contemporary architecture and social processes. Theoretical texts on her art bring to life the environments in which she created as well as those created by her. These writings are complemented by texts from Aleksandra Kasuba herself, in which the artist reveals the principles, ideas and visions behind her work. Shaping the Future: Environments by Aleksandra Kasuba is a book that highlights the relevance of Kasuba’s artistic legacy and the beauty and significance of her hybrid practices that combine art, design and architecture.

Published by the Lithuanian National Museum of Arts
English/Lithuanian
455 pages
ISBN: 978-6094261466