Art organization: interview with Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Ljubljana, 2019

Biography: 

 

Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša

In 2007, three Slovenian artists joined the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and officially changed their names to that of the leader of the party, the Prime Minister of Slovenia at the time, Janez Janša. While they renamed themselves for personal reasons, the boundaries between their lives and their art began to blur in numerous and unforeseen ways. Since then, they have been living their private and public lives, working individually and collectively under the same name, and exploring the philosophical, psychological, political, biopolitical, historical, legal, economic, linguistic, and social implications of the name change; turning their lives into an ongoing performance and their art into a powerful means to question rituals and conventions, and to discuss the status and function of identity-related objects such as signatures, passports, ID cards, credit and debit 

Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša
Summary: 

Art organization: interview with Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Ljubljana, 2019

 

Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša

In 2007, three Slovenian artists joined the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and officially changed their names to that of the leader of the party, the Prime Minister of Slovenia at the time, Janez Janša. While they renamed themselves for personal reasons, the boundaries between their lives and their art began to blur in numerous and unforeseen ways. Since then, they have been living their private and public lives, working individually and collectively under the same name, and exploring the philosophical, psychological, political, biopolitical, historical, legal, economic, linguistic, and social implications of the name change; turning their lives into an ongoing performance and their art into a powerful means to question rituals and conventions, and to discuss the status and function of identity-related objects such as signatures, passports, ID cards, credit and debit cards.

 

Art organization (review of historical practices through the XX century to the present day), research project kuda.org

Art Organisation analyses the phenomenon of artistic (self)organisation and relations within artistic groups and collectives in the post-Yugoslav region during the last fifty years, and the ways it influenced the profile and quality of their artistic production. Research within the project Art Organisation is aimed at group and collective processes of creation and internal dynamics between artists and other participants in them. The focus is on self-organised initiatives outside the framework of official institutions. Through the phenomena of self-organisation, the project questions the role of civil society organisations as potential progressive places in society through dealing with art.

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, and continued during 2018/2019. The research team is composed of members of kuda.org with associates from Belgrade, theoreticians and art historians Milica Pekić and Stevan Vuković and Ana Peraica from Split. During 2019, the interviewed were collectives and groups in the field of contemporary art, theoreticians and art historians, and protagonist artists who realized their practice through group art work.

Art Organisation is part of a wider project Vectors of Collective Imagination where kuda.org cooperates with partners: Multimedia Institute mi2 and Kulturtreger-Books, Zagreb (HR); Glänta Gothenburg  (SE); Kontrapunkt, Skopje (MK) and Berliner Gazette, Berlin (DE).