| The present publication presents five
books, the final products of five projects extending over the last
thirteen years. The beginnings of the first project, Kapital, reach
back to the period of the socialist social system, which, however,
was already over by the time we issued the first publication. On the
other hand, the publication that addresses the last of the five projects
will come out in an integral version at a time when Slovenia will
already be a fully-fledged member of the European Union. Thus the
projects literally connect the two ends of the period called the transitional
period. But it is not only this external overlapping that links the
presented line of projects with the notion of transition. Transformation
itself is the theme and subject matter of the Retroprincip book series.
The projects presented have many points in common, but here we
will point out only two that we regard as being of key significance.
All the projects deal with reflections on modern art in Eastern
Europe and all of them envisaged, from the very beginning, the production
of a book as their final artifact. If an artist does not reflect
on his work himself, if he fails to articulate it in communication
or writing, then someone else will do so instead. A problem arises
when there is no such someone, when the art system of a particular
space is organized such that it hinders communication and articulation.
Then the only possibility of communicating with contemporary art
production is to assume and refer to someone else?s articulation.
And if we hold the view that text is not an external objectivizing
addendum to art production but an internal, integral part of it,
then we have to undertake communication and articulation on our
own. Our suspicions about the differences in the operation of Eastern
and Western art systems (here, we do not have in mind differences
stemming from the different political systems) were confirmed already
in the course of the Kapital project. A great number of empirical
facts and the small things that co-shape the conditions of production
convinced us again and again that differences no doubt exist. If
we take K. Marx at least a bit seriously, then we can not circumvent
the claim that it is precisely the conditions of production that
fatefully define the production itself. Difference in conditions
is reflected in different production. The Retroprincip book series
opens with a thesis about the specific conditions of art production
in the East. Through discussions, most of which took place during
our journeys to Moscow and across the US, we tried to articulate
this difference, which materialized in an open conflict during the
Interpol project. Since the difference in regulating communication,
articulation and inscription, which is tackled by the Retroprincip
book series, gradually emerged as the key difference, the series
concludes with East Art Map.
IRWIN,
April 2003, Ljubljana
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