NSK: FROM KAPITAL TO CAPITAL

Date

Hours

11:00–22:00

Place

East Gallery

Neue Slowenische Kunst—An Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia.

In fall 2016, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art presented NSK: FROM KAPITAL TO CAPITAL, the first major survey show in Russia of the Slovenian art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), developed by the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. The exhibition traces key events from 1980 to 1992—concerts, shows, theatrical productions, performances, guerrilla actions, public proclamations—by the four core groups that comprised NSK. In 1992, partly in response to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the groups ceased working as a collective and launched the “NSK State in Time,” a utopian formation which describes itself as “the first global state of the Universe.”

The collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) was founded in 1984 by three groups––the multimedia group Laibach (formed1980), the visual arts group IRWIN (formed 1983) and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theater (1983-1987). In the same year, the three groups founded a fourth group, the design department New Collectivism. Later, NSK established other departments: the Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy (1986), Retrovision (1987), Film (1984), and Builders (1985).

Public program
Public Program for the exhibition NSK: FROM KAPITAL TO CAPITAL includes a lecture by the curator of the exhibition and director of Moderna galerija in Ljubljana Zdenka Badovinac, a discussion prepared by Garage Teens Team, as well as a program of screenings and workshops. A selection of publications on the topic will be available at Garage Library throughout the exhibition.

The public program around the NSK retrospective at Garage focuses on unraveling to the wider public some of the keys issues within the art collective’s practice. These include a new study on how Yugoslav art responded to the Russian Avant-Garde—one of the most important sources of inspiration for NSK, as well as an inside look at the processes that led to the formation of a borderless state with blurred sovereignty—the NSK State in Time—and the need for such virtual states to exist today.

Four documentary films in the screening program shed light on the history of NSK as well as on the controversial Slovenian music scene in the 1980s that was so influential to the group’s ideology. Also showing is a documentary on the nationwide art scandal surrounding the famous poster they created for Yugoslav’s Youth Day which became symbolic of the NSK aesthetic and theoretical approach for years to come.

Schedule

Presenting the Absence: NSK and the History of the Russian Avant-Garde. A lecture by Zdenka Badovinac

Curator of the exhibition and director of Moderna galerija, Ljubljana Zdenka Badovinac will present new research exploring how Yugoslav art responded to Russian Avant-Garde ideas, and in particular how NSK made the absence of such a history—missing for a long time in the references of Yugoslav artists—present.

Date
Friday, September 30
Time
19:30
Place
Garage Auditorium

Virtual States: Why Do We Need Them Today?

Round-table discussion organized by Garage Teens Team.

Discussion around issues like globalization, the erosion of state borders and the changing notion of sovereignty is no longer limited to the realm of philosophy and politics, but increasingly involves the visual arts.

Date
Tuesday, November 8
Time
19:30
Place
Garage Auditorium

Stream

Here we’ve put together materials to help you get ready for a visit to the Museum or to take a deep dive into the current programs at Garage.

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