NSK presents the PRO AMICIS art books series by Maja S. Franković and Luko Paljetak
On 25 October 2018, the National and University Library in Zagreb hosted a presentation of art books by a renowned Croatian graphic artist Maja S. Franković and a distinguished Croatian poet Luko Paljetak. Jointly published by the Zagreb-based Edition Biškupić and Rijeka-based F&F Art Editions publishing companies as part of the PRO AMICIS series, the eight art books all have the same title – From the library of Mrs Sei Shõnagon: Chinese poems (Iz knjižnice gospođe Sei Shõnagon: kineske pjesme).
This outstanding series of art books was presented by the Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Tonko Maroević, the representative of the Edition Biškupić publishing company Božo Biškupić, the authors themselves, and Head of the Print Collection of the National and University Library in Zagreb Tamara Ilić Olujić.
The books give the readers a multi-layered aesthetic and reading experience, since each poem is printed on a single leaf folded multiple times to form a book. The books’ hard covers, holding a world that richly intertwines the visual and the poetic, were manually designed and may be viewed in multiple ways, depending on how and to what extent the leaf is folded out. As is highly characteristic of the style of Ms S. Franković, the possibility of transformation is central to the books’ design, thus allowing them to become unique sculptures of graphic art, said Ilić Olujić.
The publication of the From the library of Mrs Sei Shõnagon: Chinese poems series, represents a continuation of the cooperation between the two artists, who similarly joined their respective arts on two previous occasions (Šest šestina i jedan stih za ljubavni inženjering, 1998; Occelovljenje, 2005).
