REALIZE! RESIST! REACT!
Performance and Politics in the 1990s in the Post-Yugoslav Context
SPOZNANJE! UPOR! REAKCIJA!
24 June – 3 October 2021
Moderna galerija Ljubljana, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM)
Curator: Bojana Piškur
Guest curators: Linda Gusia | Jasna Jakšić | Vida Knežević | Nita Luci | Asja Mandić | Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski | Ivana Vaseva | Rok Vevar | Jasmina Založnik
Eros Ars System – theatrical installation by Igor Štromajer & Bojana Kunst
actors: Petra Govc, Polona Juh, Rastko Krošl, Boris Mihalj
Gledališče Glej | The Glej Theatre, Ljubljana 1990
Photo: Bojan Golčar
The research and mapping project of political performance of the 1990s seeks to shed light on what political performance actually was in the post-Yugoslav context. Specifically, what did performance, then an already established art form in the Western world, bring to, mean, or change in the broader field of art of the 1990s? Can one actually talk about “performance beyond the political”? Is performance even the right term to encapsulate such a vastly varied production in the then newly founded states from Slovenia to Macedonia? Outside the art institutions, there was no common or shared understanding of performance in the region, which was primarily the consequence of considerably different socioeconomic and political circumstances. And herein lies the main difficulty of our project. Its unifying thread was not a search for similarities but a juxtaposing of certain “absences.” Generally, a lack of political engagement and the considerable unresponsiveness to or silence about certain political events, such as the wars and related crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo, or the case of the erased citizens in Slovenia, was characteristic of art in Slovenia.
ON.KRAJ/BE.YOND – intimate performance by Igor Štromajer & Bojana Kunst
performer: Nika Ločniškar
Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana 1997
Photo: Bojan Golčar
What is evident in the Slovenia of the 1990s is the absence of emancipatory left-wing politics, a growing marginalization of the working class, and civil society’s inability to reform as a motor of new politics, to shake off the logic of its 1980s struggle and rise above the horizon of neoliberalism. Civil society was split apart by conflict and power struggles, political influence, and social power, with the discriminatory logic of exclusion clearly evident. At the same time, there was a distancing from the “idea” of Yugoslavia and the discovery of a new “European” identity, which resonated also in art. That difficult decade – not only for researchers in the field of art, but also or even more so for scholars exploring its history, society, and economy – left a profound mark on the decades that followed, with its nationalisms, transition, revisionisms, corruption, particracy, and market capitalism. Tomaž Mastnak described it as “the creation of post-socialist klepto-oligarchies.” Our present time of “state of emergency” (or almost state of war) seems in many respects a direct continuation of the 1990s, particularly in the way in which right-wing politics/parties are managing the current crisis and govern the state.
What is quite evidently happening in the field of culture in Slovenia is an aggressive turn to national (mono) culture, conservativism, and populism, with a political campaign of removing critical voices from institutions, etc. This is, in short, a time of attempted “silencing,” and those active in the field of art and culture are resisting and fighting against it in ways and with means similar to those employed during the 1990s. Consequently, political performance here is not understood merely as some kind of “witness” to events, but as a form of resistance against “war machines” (related to power, institutions, state, identities, language), a resistance that has often emerged under extreme political circumstances. On the other hand, one of the questions raised by our research was whether a withdrawal into the apolitical (even in art) is ever possible in a complex political environment.
Participants:
Arkzin | Art Publishing group (Bojan Bahić & Sanda Hnatjuk) | Autonomna tvornica kulture – Attack! (Autonomous Cultural Center – Attack!) | Maja Bajević | Damir Bartol Indoš | Aleksandar Battista Ilić, Ivana Keser, Tomislav Gotovac | Faruk Begolli | Matjaž Berger | Goran Bertok | Iva-Matija Bitanga & Bijesne gliste | Zoran Bogdanović | Marko Brecelj | Mateja Bučar | Centar za izveduvački umetnosti Multimedia (Performing Arts Center Multimedia) | Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju (Center for Cultural Decontamination) | Suzana Cerić & Anela Šabić | Predrag Čančar | Ivica Čuljak (Satan Panonski) | Dah Teatar | Danica Dakić | Vlasta Delimar | Iskra Dimitrova | Dodona Teatri (Dodona Theater) | Eclipse | Feral Tribune | Tomislav Gotovac | Igor Grubić | Grupa Elementi (Biljana Petrovska Isijanin, Ljupčo Isijanin) | Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid | Kemal Hadžić | Jusuf Hadžifejzović | Emil Hrvatin (Janez Janša) | Ištvan Išt Huzjan | Irwin | Sanja Iveković | Sanjin Jukić | Robert Jankuloski | Ante Jurić | Božidar Jurjević | Kanal 103 | KOHA | Zlatko Kopljar | Marko Košnik, Inštitut Egon March (Egon March Institute) | Marko A. Kovačič | Ema Kugler | Laibach | Le Cheval | Led art | Maja Licul | Goran Lišnjić (LEBENSFORMER) | Magnet | Mala Stanica | Saša Marković Mikrob | Goranka Matić | MAXUMIM (Ajna Arnautalić, Eldina Begić, Suzana Cerić, Alma Fazlić, Zlatan Filipović, Anur Hadžiomerspahić, Almir Kurt, Damir Nikšić, Hamdija Pašić, Samir Plasto, Rachel Rossner, Anela Šabić, Nebojša Šerić Shoba, Dejan Vekić) | Ana Miljanić | Mirovni inštitut (The Peace Institute) | Mladina | Peter Mlakar | Montažstroj | Mreža za Metelkovo (The Metelkova Network) | Oliver Musovik | Muzej biciklističkog ustanka (Museum of the Bicycle Uprising) | Nepopravljivi optimisti (The Incorrigible Optimists) | Novi kolektivizem (New Collectivism) | NSK | Edin Numankadić | Organizirane ženske skupine Slovenije (Organized Women’s Groups of Slovenia) | Irena Paskali | Nusret Pašić | Marko Peljhan | Alenka Pirman, Vuk Ćosić, Irena Woelle | Tadej Pogačar | Ivana Popović | Arjan Pregl, Miha Štrukelj, Marko Zatler | Franc Purg | Agim Qena | Radio Študent | Vlado G. Repnik | Sarajevski New Primitivs (Sarajevo New Primitivs) | Schmrtz Teatar | Enes Sivac | Mustafa Skopljak | Maja Smrekar | Soros centar za sovremena umetnost Skopje (Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Skopje) | Aleksandar Stankoski et al. | Mladen Stilinović | Sven Stilinović | Saša Stojanović | Alma Suljević | Bojan Šarčević | Nebojša Šerić Shoba | Škart | Igor Štromajer | Ive Tabar | Radoslav Tadić | Slaven Tolj | Igor Toševski | Srđan Veljović | Vreme | Sonja Vukićević | Petar Waldegg | Žene u crnom (Women in Black) | Dunja Zupančič::Draga Živadinov::Miha Turšič | Janja Žvegelj Continue reading “REALIZE! RESIST! REACT!”
