László Rajk (1949-2019) was an architect, production designer, artist, and political activist. Born in Budapest, Rajk shared his name with his father, a communist politician executed following a Stalinist show trial in 1949. Trained as an architect, Rajk spent his earliest professional years channeling his education into set designs for stage and film. A central figure of Hungary’s samizdat subculture, Rajk reproduced and distributed censored and dissident literature from the ‘Samizdat Boutique’ operated out of his apartment between 1981 and 1983. Rajk himself provided cover illustrations for a number of the texts, including works by the poet György Petri, philosophers Gáspar Miklós Tamás and Miklós Haraszti, the playwright Witold Gombrowicz, and the novelist Milan Kundera. Rajk’s work from this period also includes graphic design and numerous comics critiquing socialist Hungary with an irony and playfulness that would characterize much of his oeuvre. After the Iron Curtain fell, Rajk served in the Hungarian Parliament as a member of the Alliance of Free Democrats. Until his death in 2019, he was a practicing architect and professor at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. He would gain international prominence as a production designer for films including László Nemes’ Oscar-winning Son of Saul (2015) and Béla Tarr’s The Man from London (2007) and The Turin Horse (2011). Selected exhibitions Forecast and Fantasy – Architecture Without Borders 1960s to 1980s, international group exhibition, Estonian Museum of Architecture, Tallinn, Estonia, 2023Kádár Cube – Subversive Artistic Actions (1973-1977). An exhibition of Ákos Birkás and László Rajk, Art Department, Budapest, Hungary, 2022A Town on the Edge – Little Warsaw, László Rajk, Andi Schmied, Art Department, Budapest, Hungary, 2021Wide Angle – 120 Years of Hungarian Cinema, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary, 2021Time Machine – A New Selection from the Collection of the Ludwig Museum, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary, 2020Rajk Vision – Film Sculptures and Frottages, FUGA – Contemporary Architecture Centre, Budapest, Hungary, 2019Sketches, Trapéz Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2019Unruly Constructions, An exhibition of Tamás Király and László Rajk, Trapéz Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, 2017Missing Paragraphs, Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2012L‘autre moitié de l’Europe, Galerie National du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France, 2000 Works in public collectionsLudwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, HungaryMOCAK – Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow, PolandJewish Museum, Budapest, HungaryNational Museum, Budapest, HungaryMuseum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, HungaryForschungsstelle Osteuropa, Bremen, GermanyAkademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany