Image: M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum, Kaunas
The National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum in Kaunas is presenting the first major exhibition in Lithuania devoted to Barbara Kasten, the Lithuanian-American artist whose work has been collected by major museums including MoMA, Whitney, Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou. Titled 'Postabstrakcija', the exhibition runs from July 16 to October 25, 2026, and surveys nearly six decades of her practice through about 80 works across photography, sculpture and installation.
The museum describes the show as a landmark presentation of one of the leading figures in contemporary abstract art. It also frames the exhibition as a symbolic return for an artist who was born in Chicago in 1936 to a family of Lithuanian emigrants and later came to know more about her roots as an adult. After her father’s death, Kasten traveled to Lithuania with her mother and met relatives living near Panevėžys, an encounter the museum connects to the personal significance of the Kaunas exhibition.
Kasten’s artistic development is presented as a long exploration of light, color, structure and perception. She studied painting, sculpture and textile design, and the museum notes that Bauhaus ideas became a key foundation for her work. A decisive moment came in 1971, when she received a Fulbright-Hays scholarship and went to Poznań to study with Magdalena Abakanowicz. That experience helped shape an artistic language in which light, color and space became central rather than secondary elements.
After returning to the United States, Kasten transformed photography into an experimental medium shaped by mirrors, geometric forms, color and light. Later, in New York, she increasingly turned toward architecture, combining Bauhaus experimentation, Constructivism and postmodern architectural influences. The exhibition title points to this dialogue with avant-garde history: rather than repeating abstraction, the museum says, Kasten rewrites and tests its language in relation to the viewer’s own experience.
According to the museum, the exhibition brings together works that allow visitors to follow the evolution of Kasten’s approach over nearly six decades. The display includes photographs, sculptures and installations that examine how she constructs visual situations in which the boundaries between real and imagined space, or between seeing and perceiving, begin to dissolve. In her work, light is not treated simply as a means of illumination but as a material in its own right.
The museum’s text also places the exhibition in the context of previous presentation history. Lithuanian audiences encountered Kasten’s work in 1995, when the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius mounted 'Barbara Kasten. 1982–1994', but 'Postabstrakcija' is described as the first exhibition of this scale in Lithuania. The Kaunas show arrived from Zachęta — National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, where it was presented as the first exhibition of comparable scope in this part of Europe.
The exhibition at the National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum in Kaunas is curated by Agnieszka Pindera. It was prepared in collaboration with Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, with partners Galerie Kadel Willborn, Philara Collection and The BlueKnowledge Art Collection. The project is funded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and supported by the Polish Institute in Vilnius.
