Delegates will need to arrive in Berlin by the 3rd and can depart on the 7th. Alongside the Congress itself there will be a public programme of events including an exhibition, screenings and talks. More details will follow soon.

IRWIN Exhibition at the Israeli Centre for Digital Art
6.2.2010 – 10.4.2010
Opening: Saturday, February 6th, at 20:00
Curator: Avi Pitchon

PRESS RELEASE:

The Israeli Centre for Digital Art is proud to host the Middle-Eastern debut of the unique and influential art group Irwin from Slovenia.

Irwin serves as the visual arts department within the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst – New Slovenian Art) collective that also includes a music department (the band Laibach), a graphic design department, theatre department and a department for ‘pure and applied philosophy’.

Since its inception in 1984, NSK has become the most important disseminator of contemporary art in Eastern Europe in particular, and one of the driving forces of European art in general. The collective’s aesthetic and conceptual emphasis is the re-examination of the dramatic, heroic and tragic meeting point of the 20th Century’s utopian art movements and the totalitarian regimes of that century, and the way it resonates in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and hides behind values of contemporary capitalism.

The central characteristic of NSK’s art in general and Irwin’s in specific is the charged and provocative use of the aforementioned regimes’ aesthetics – they blend together socialist realism, fascist and Nazi neo-classicism, abstract suprematism and national, folk and ‘volkist’ elements. The five artists who comprise the Irwin group – Dušan Mandic, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik – have refused up until a few years ago to identify individually or sign their names on the artworks they created. The strategy behind this radical, confrontational attitude is what their compatriot thinker Slavoj Zizek termed ‘over-identification’. Instead of directly opposing the perils of totalitarianism, NSK and Irwin attempt to be ‘more righteous than The Pope’, more zealous in their impressive, seductive representation of the regime than the ways with which the same regime dares to present itself. This explicit, enthusiastic loyalty exposes more efficiently, according to Zizek, the dark elements contemporary state regimes attempt to conceal under a cool and pleasant façade. It goes without saying that in any of the cases where the state has prevented, censored or banned the activity of one of the NSK’s departments, the collective declared that this was the aim to begin with: testing the system’s validity and alertness, which proves, by the act of repression, that it defends itself well.

NSK started operating when Slovenia was still a part of Yugoslavia, and its use of fascistic elements disturbed the regime which maintained Tito’s legacy, since the victory over Nazism was indeed one of the founding myths of the entire Eastern bloc. In 1991 the collective declared itself to be a state in time, as opposed to space. This nebulous existence was nevertheless accompanied by the issuing of passports, stamps, currency, a flag and an anthem, and the establishments of temporary embassies operating alongside NSK exhibitions and events. NSK’s total identification with aesthetic signifiers of the state apparatus led to a dramatic blurring of art and life, when during the subsequent war an unknown number of citizens managed to escape from Sarajevo using NSK State’s fictional diplomatic passports. This same blurring rose to prominence again in recent years as NSK’s HQ were flooded with hundreds if not thousands of passport applications from African, mainly Nigerian, citizens, who hoped that NSK’s passports can grant them entrance to life in the European Union.

NSK have proven that their actions gain extra impact and validity on the background of dramatic change and upheaval. From the downfall of communism, through the war in the Balkans, and up to the new EU utopia. Therefore, the importance of exhibiting their work in Israel doesn’t merely revolve around providing the Israeli viewer with a chance to acquaint themselves with this fascinating body of work, but mainly around the collective’s activity as a model for artistic thought and praxis for us here and now. Israel, a state originating in a utopian concept which at birth sounded at least as imaginary and outlandishly refutable as the idea of the NSK State, is nowadays engaged in a struggle that borders civil war around the question of how to continue realising that original concept, when each camp claims monopoly over what Zionism is, convinced that the opposing camp will not only lead to the disappearance of Zionism as a unique utopian experiment, but to actual physical demise. At the same time, these camps face forces of critique that seek a paradigm to inherit and exchange Zionism, and all of the above can collectively feel the ground shaking underneath their feet due to the stamping might of the free market. Irwin’s work is throwing a gauntlet towards the Israeli art field that rarely investigates the meeting point of utopia-aesthetics-politics-state with an approach remotely resembling an overview. Contemporary art in Israel prefers either dissemination within the framework of the global market, or specific, issue-driven, critical political work – that is to say, both tendencies reveal a subscription to one of the many camps pulling each to its own direction, when no one demonstrates a desire or ability to inspect the big picture, the overall story, its roots, and accordingly, the vectors it may follow in the future.

To our dismay, the first gauntlet thrown by Irwin was not picked up. One of the projects presented in the exhibition is ‘NSK Guards’ – a series of photographic documentations depicting soldiers belonging to various (mainly East European) armies wearing armbands bearing the Malevich cross on their sleeves, and standing to attention in front of the NSK State flag. Irwin have formally invited the Israeli Defence Forces to participate in the project and be documented in the same manner, while performing military drills at the opening of the exhibition. The IDF flatly refused.

The exhibition will present a condensed retrospective of paintings and icons that are weaved through Irwin’s entire body of work, photographic and film documentation of NSK State activity in recent years with an emphasis on the operations revolving around embassies and passport issuing, and a new photographic project in which Irwin begin to touch upon the area of state and religion.

During the opening, the Israeli Centre for Digital Art will host an NSK embassy that will issue passports to interested parties, in return for a set fee and on the basis of a performance emulating formal procedure typical to any home office.

Curator Avi Pitchon first bumped into NSK in 1987, during a late-night screening of underground music videos presented by Yoav Kutner in the Tel-Aviv Museum, which included a live rendition of Laibach’s song ‘Die Liebe’. Pitchon holds, since 2003, a diplomatic NSK passport and in 2008 presented a commissioned edited sequence of Laibach’s documentaries and concerts in the exhibition ‘The White Sport’ he co-curated alongside Hannah Freund-Chertok.

Pitchon sees the presentation of Irwin in Israel a mission of goodwill and an integral part of fulfilling his formal duties to NSK State, abiding to the collective’s slogan ‘art is fanaticism which demands diplomacy’.

If you were not selected remember that there will be a programme of public events accompanying the congress (unfortunately we are not able to assist you with visas or accommodation in order to attend these events.) You can also take part in or follow the debates on the Congress microsite in advance of the event and remember that some elements of the event will be streamed live online and there will be regular online bulletins and videos while the congress runs. There will also be some satellite events taking part in other cities and details of these will be announced nearer the time.

You can view latest NSK news and begin to discuss the event here and on the congress microsite.

IF YOU HAVE NOT HEARD FROM US BY THE END OF 2009 YOUR APPLICATION WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL. DUE TO THE NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS RECEIVED WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DISCUSS THE REASONS FOR INDIVIDUAL SELECTIONS.

The LAIBACH REVISITED double album will include a complete version of the first classic Laibach album (LAIBACH, 1985), re-mastered from the original tapes with additional tracks included on the disc one. The second disc will present newly arranged and recorded versions of selected songs from the period 1980 – 1986, including Brat moj (Brother of Mine), Država (The State), Mi kujemo bodočnost (We Are Forging the Future), Krvava gruda – plodna zemlja (Bloody Ground – Fertile Soil), and others. This album is due to be released in May 2010.

The VOLKSWAGNER double album will present a unique Laibachian interpretation of Richard Wagner’s music. Disc 1 will present a studio version of recorded and mixed material created in collaboration between Laibach, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, and Izidor Leitinger. Disc 2 will present a selection of tracks recorded from live performances of the VOLKSWAGNER suite. This album is scheduled for release in the second half of 2010.

Both albums will be produced as valuable collector’s items, equipped with richly designed booklets featuring exclusive photos, pictures, texts, essays, and information. The vinyl version will also feature a special poster. Precise descriptions of the albums and the exact release dates will be announced closer to the release date.

You can reserve a copy of the albums!

The Trbovlje exhibition will open in the Delavski Dom on September 27th, exactly 30 years after the (forbidden) very first Laibach appearance at the same place in Laibach’s home town.

Ljubljana exhibition at MGLC (International Centre of Graphic Arts) will open on April 1st 2010.

Zagreb exhibition date will be announced as soon as the date is confirmed.

Laibach and Juno Reactor will join forces on an EU double headline tour in December.

The premiere show of the tour was already held on 18 October 2009 on the occasion of the long-awaited opening of Kino Šiška, a new concert and cultural venue in Ljubljana, Slovenia. For this occasion Laibach created new versions of some of their older tracks from the first half of 1980s, which will now also be presented on the upcoming tour.

Laibach and Juno Reactor first met in 1994 at the legendary 429 Harrow Road, London, where the Mute Records label was based until very recently. Juno Reactor, then recording for Nova Mute, accepted an invitation from Laibach to remix a version of Final Countdown for their single.Two years later, Laibach included on their album Jesus Christ Superstars their own remake of Juno Reactor’s track God is God, the original version of which appeared on the JR Bible of Dreams album in 1997.

The paths of both groups have intersected briefly on several occasions, and a while ago Laibach invited Ben Watkins, the driving force behind Juno Reactor, first to participate as a producer in the studio version of their 2009 ‘electro – symphonic – experimental jazz ’ project Volkswagner, and then as a collaborator on the ambitious film project Iron Sky being developed by the creators of the Star Wreck film (the most popular internet film project of all time),who have selected Laibach to score the music for the new film. Iron Sky is to be completed at the beginning of 2011. Soon the idea of doing a joint European tour was born. The premiere concert was held on September 18th in theSlovenian capital Ljubljana on the occasion of the opening of the new Ljubljana cultural venue – Kino Siška. The rest of the tour will kick off on December 5th and take both groups through the Netherlands, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Belgium, and the UK. The second part of the tour is scheduled for February and March 2010.

Juno Reactor

Juno Reactor are a musical and performing act that was initially conceived as an art project by the British artist Ben Watkins. Having hoped to discover new possibilities of expression within the technology of the time, he began collaborating with various artists from the spheres of music, film, and fine art. Juno Reactor have been performing under that name since 1990, and towards the turn of the century they became a major player on the developingelectronic music scene oriented towards experimental trance and high energy music.

Juno Reactor strongly influenced groups like Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers. Subsequently they kept changing their mode of expression and realised some fruitful attempts at film music, the highlight being an instrumental remixof Control for the soundtrack of the film Mortal Kombat and compositions for parts two and three of the Matrix film trilogy (with the exceptional song Navras). Juno’s music has been used and adapted by many filmmakers over the years (including Tarantino) in cult movies such as Eraser, Virtuosity, Lost In Space, the Romeo & Juliet trailer,Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Beowulf, The Animatrix, etc, etc.

Their live concert show looks like Mad Max versus Blade Runner versus Matrix. Apart from older tracks, Juno Reactor will present on the tour their latest record Gods and Monsters (Metropolis Records). They will also be joined on stage by percussionists from South Africa and diverse musicians from around the world, including Japanese guitar star Sugizo (Yasuhiro Sugihara).

Laibach

On the upcoming tour and in light of their 30th anniversary next year, Laibach will present new versions of some of their older tracks from the first half of the 1980s, such as the notorious Država (The State), Brat moj (Brother of Mine), and Mi kujemo bodocnost (We Are Forging The Future), as well as a selection of material from last few albums.

During the last couple of years, more than 2000 of people from Africa, (mainly from Nigeria) tried to contact NSKSTATE.COM by email. WORDS FROM AFRICA is a collection of emails organized according to the words that was used in the messages.

NSKSTATE.COM in collaboration with Irwin presented “Outlook: Words from Africa” (the latest version of the project) in “Utopics” the 11th Swiss Sculpture Exhibition in Biel/Bienne on August 29th. The exhibition will be open until October 25, 2009.

Laibach announced a special, double headline, concert featuring Laibach and Juno Reactor on the occasion of the long-awaited opening of Kino Šiška, a new concert venue in Ljubljana (Slovenia), on 18.9.2009.

Photo by Marco Pirc

Especially for this occasion Laibach created new versions of some of their older tracks from the first half of 1980’s.
Laibach and Juno Reactor will join forces also on the selected dates on December EU tour.

IRWIN and NSKSTATE.COM are gathering material for a first exhibition of work produced by NSK citizens and followers. Works selected will be shown online and photographic and video material will be shown at the First NSK Citizens Congress in October 2010.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Please send high resolution photos or scans of your work to VOLKART[at]NSKSTATE.COM
Works will be selected on merit. All works will be considered, but we cannot guarantee that your work will be chosen. Selection of your work for this project does not entitle you to take part in the congress – you must apply separately for this!

The first NSK Passport Office was opened in Athens on 14 June 2009 on the occasion of the opening events of “Heaven”, the 2nd Biennale of Athens that tool place in  the cost of Faliro.

Novi Kolektivizem at the NSK Passport Office in Athens.