Monumentalna retroavantgarda

by Zlato Krec

On 25. March 2004, Moderna galerija Ljubljana (The Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana) has introduced a new exhibit for their travelling exhibition ARTEAST 2000+ (www.2000p.org) "Monumentalna retroavantgarda" by LAIBACH.

"Monumental RetroAvant-garde" is a picture/video installation which consists of three parts. The center part is a huge (3 x 3 m?) framed poster of LAIBACH. On each side is one supported 16:9 plasma video screen. The right screen is playing (in a loop) the legendary action "XY – Unsolved", the interview on TV Ljubljana from 1983, which earned to Laibach their four years long ban, and prohibition on using their name. The Interview was recently acquired from TV Slovenija and transformed into an artefact of the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana to become an exhibit of performance in real time. The left screen is playing the video footage (in a loop) from the Laibach Einkauf action on 6. April 2003 in the biggest shopping mall in Ljubljana. The same footage has been seen already in the WAT film by Saso Podgorsek.

The official explanation of the installation is that the Interview from 1983 was confronted in dialogue with the Laibach Einkauf action to show the situation twenty years later when the "second and third TV generation are calmly accepting most diverse political and cultural riots, only if they are not threatening their freedom of consumption".

PRESS RELEASE:

Arteast2000+
Selected works from the international and national collections of Moderna galerija / The Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana

Travelling exhibition

3 February - 2 May 2004

Miroslaw BALKA, Jože BARŠI, Jerzy BEREŠ, Geta BRATESCU, Carlfriedrich CLAUS, Vuk COSIC, Nuša & Sreco DRAGAN, Stanislaw DROZDZ, Roza EL-HASSAN, Miklos ERDELY, Stano FILKO, Vadim FIŠKIN, Tomislav GOTOVAC, lon GRIGORESCU, Dmitrij GUTOV, Jusuf HADŽIFEJZOVIC, Tibor HAJAS, IRWIN, Sanja IVEKOVIC, Sanja IVEKOVIC & Dalibor MARTINIS, Julije KNIFER, Milan KNIŽAK, KOMAR & MELAMID, Jaroslaw KOZLOWSKI, Katarzyna KOZYRA, Ivan KOŽARIC, Oleg KULIK, Zofia KULIK, Vladimir KUPRIJANOV, KWIEKULIK (Przemyslaw KWIEK & Zofia KULIK), LAIBACH, Jurij LEIDERMAN, Natalia LL, Kazimir MALEVIC, MANGELOS, Karel MILER, Jan MLCOCH, Alex MLYNARCIK, Andrej MONASTIRSKIJ, Oliver MUSOVIK, Paul NEAGU, NOVI KOLEKTIVIZEM, OHO, Anatolij OSMOLOVSKIJ, Adrian PACI, Marko PELJHAN, Amalia PERJOVSCHI, Dan PERJOVSCHI, Tadej POGACAR & PAR.A.S.i.T.E. Museum of Contemporary
Art, Marjetica POTRC, Dmitrij PRIGOV, Jozef ROBAKOWSKI, Aleksandr ROITBURD, Arsen SAVADOV, GLEDALIŠCE SCIPION NASICE, Nedko SOLAKOV, Mladen STILINOVIC, subREAL, Miloš ŠEJN, Nebojša ŠERIC-ŠOBA, llja ŠOŠKIC, Petr ŠTEMBERA, Apolonija ŠUŠTERŠIC, Raša TODOSIJEVIC, Slaven TOLJ, Milica TOMIC, Endre TOT, Jiri VALOCH, Konstantin ZVEZDOCETOV

You are kindly invited to view the travelling exhibition of the international collection Arteast 2000+, put on for the first time in Slovenia and presented together with works by a number of Slovenian artists.

The exhibition was first staged in November 2001 in Innsbruck, on the occasion of the meeting of European Ministers of Culture, and was warmly received by both the public and the press. Upon the invitation of Peter Weibel the show traveled to the ZKM in Karlsruhe in April 2002, and at the end of August the same year to the Cifte Amam Gallery in Skopje.

What sets this exhibition apart is its mobile character, echoing the character of the collection and embodying the metaphor of movement. It expresses the idea of travelling as "the trauma in the memory of the recent past of the Eastern half of Europe ... (where) people would have agreed to the most intolerable conditions only to be able to move," as well as the distinctly nomadic character of contemporary art. As the curator of the exhibition, Zdenka Badovinac, wrote in the catalogue: "The display of the Arteast 2000+ collection does not hide the joy of travelling to the West. The collection attempts to bring together the experiences of the East and West, while being aware of the specific circumstances created with the different projects. It also strives to express delight at the fact that something is moving. /.../ The East has moved from a standstill, and this collection, which is the first comprehensive collection of Eastern European art, is a part of this. What is important about it is that it was created in the East. Because of this fact, space became the subject of this movement. /... / The Arteast 2000+ collection travels in cases which allude to Marcel Duchamp's boîte-en-valise and are not only transport packaging, but also exhibition niches for exhibits, which carry their own meaning. /.../ The concept of the exhibition is naturally connected with the relationship between the ideal display and the type of display which is limited due to unsuitable conditions or the artists absence. Here, we must ask the old question: when is a work of art really finished? Who finishes a work of art? An artist, curator, or viewer? The relationship between a work and a space remains unresolved. The display does not pretend to be final. It is about possibilities." (Zdenka Badovinac)

This is the first time this exhibition is staged in its home museum, virtually in the same form as it was conceived for the Innsbruck show. The exhibition will be open until 2. May 2004.

Find out more by visiting the Arteast 2000+ collection Web site www.2000p.org