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’.

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.

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!

Ausstellung Laibach Kunst – Recapitulation 2009 focus on the visual phenomenon of Laibach. The group which has mainly been linked to the field of popular music in the public consciousness is to be reconsidered as a unique project uniting various media.

Laibach was always a multi-dimensional, multi-medial project, breaking traditional boundaries between diverse disciplines. The exhibition tryes to establish a new view to the variety of Laibach visual activities in the framework of the Laibach Gesamtkunstwerk.

The current exhibition discovers and displays some of the oldest motifs of Laibach Kunst, reinterpreted by the group. Uncovering the elemental and the brand new in various media and techniques Laibach unveil the paraphernalia of their vivid history: classic large scale paintings, graphics, posters, installations and videos. A major part of the works will be shown for the first time in this form.

Ausstellung Laibach Kunst – Recapitulation 2009 is based on the strategy of confronting archival material with recently created pieces. This exhibition will thus not function along the lines of a typical retrospective. Laibach is an active entity in permanent critique / dialogue with the current reality. The opening will be highlighted by a short sound performance by the members of Laibach themselves.

A programme of special exhibition talks, guided tours by the curators, screenings and video shows as well as a series of lectures has been organized to complement the exhibition.

The day after the opening of exhibition Laibach will also perform the LAIBACHKUNSTDERFUGE program in the Filharmonia Łódzka im. Artura Rubinsteina.

The exhibition will last until August 23rd.

This is the first time Laibach are officially and directly involved in a project taking place in Israel.

The sequence combines selected excerpts from ‘Bravo – A Film About Slovenia’, mainly parts where Slavoj Zizek is explaining Laibach’s ‘over-identification’ strategies and the way these strategies expose the ‘hidden reverse’ of a regime or ideology. This brackets a live clip of ‘Tanz Mit Laibach’.

While the above does not directly relate to issues of race, it demonstrates generally the ways and reasons Laibach deals with Nazi kunst and its aesthetics – the way, for example, the drummer girls on ‘Tanz’ emulate images in the spirit of Riefenstahl or Hitler Jugend. The aesthetics of physical perfection mobilised for a totalitarian goal.

These aesthetics and the strategy behind their presentation corresponds with the approach of the rest of this group show that features only Israeli artists, some of which are internationally active and successful, like Anat Ben-David’ Karen Russo and Sigalit Landau.

Several of the works in the exhibition relate to the way ‘holy grail’ style mystical myths were constructed to support the concept of racial purity or superiority. Other works demonstrate the presence of race in areas of contemporary popular culture like Hollywood films, advertising and supermodels as perfect modern-day ’saviours’.

A quote from the curatorial text:

“Tracing the construction of the race myth, from the 19th Century, through The Third Reich and up to present day, acknowledges that in the foundation of something horrible one can find seducing beauty – a form of kitsch that informs of its power to influence. Behind the most terrible acts and the ugliest ideas often stand enchanting, seductive myths and symbols, their beauty magically mesmerising for ignorants and thugs, thinkers and scholars, as well as for us. This should be a trivial statement, because, if those myths weren’t beautiful and seductive, if those myths were so separate from us or alien to us, there would never have been a problem in the first place.”

In addition to ‘The White Sport’, another group exhibition is on in Tel-Aviv until mid-May, where Avi Pitchon is presenting a series of photographed icons – Laibach’s ‘Volk’ metal pin is presented alongside other band symbols, for example the anarchist punk band Crass, the street punk band Anti-Nowhere League, the pagan post-metal band Neurosis, the Krishna hardcore band Shelter, and the neo-folk/martial industrial band Von Thronstahl. This presentation is an additional meditation on the subject of how mythical, mystical, totalitarian and libertarian aesthetics are represented in underground music culture.