new media center_kuda.org

Art Organization - the case of Ljubljana, October 2018.

As part of a long-term international research project that analyzes artistic (self) organization and relations within art groups in the post-Yugoslav region, kuda.org visited Ljubljana. We spoke with Marko Pogačnik (OHO group), Zdenko Badovinac (Modern Gallery + MSUM) and members of the IRWIN group (Borut Vogelnik and Miran Mohar).

The research within the Art Organization project is focused on group and collective processes, in the relations between artists and other participants in them. The aim of the research is to investigate a specific shift towards self-organized initiatives outside the framework of official institutions, and its consequences in the distribution of roles in the world of art. As Arthur Danto observed, reflecting on appearances on the New York scene at a time when he was most active, "the existence of active collaborations, instead of dreaming of some collaborations," became in a drastic sense "a testimony to a new attitude and perhaps even a new age." in Garrels 1989, 64) More precisely, the question of this research is that the modalities of the relationship between art and politics in the former Yugoslavia, as well as the ways in which relations, developed within self-organized groups of artists, are discussed. reinforced by the fact that these groups and collectives arose in a society in which socialist self-government was the official state legal doctrine.

At the same time, through the phenomena of self-organization, the project examines the role of civil society organizations as progressive places for dealing with art, through discussions with the protagonists of these practices from the 1990s to today, with reference to experiences and heritage 60s and 70s and Belgrade Surrealism of the 30s of the last century.

The introduction to the research of group work, joint authorship, working conditions, was conducted during 2017 through interviewing participants and protagonists of the contemporary art scene from Yugoslavia.

Art Organization is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination in which kuda.org collaborates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Booksa, both from Zagreb (HR); Glänta, Gothenburg (SE); Counterpoint, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).

The project is co-financed by the European Union's Creative Europe program, the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia and the City Administration for Culture of the City of Novi Sad, with the structural support of the Foundation for Artistic Initiatives.