MUSU Muzej Sodobne umetnosti

14.10.2006

MUSU, Muzej Sodobne Umetnosti (C) is a project for the new institution produced within the frame of the exhibition PROTECTIONS at the Kunsthaus Graz. It's an idea; a mind game of a non-existing Museum of Contemporary Art, without artefacts, without a marketable product, without a static physical space - but it is related to the existing geographical, historical, and social context in relation to international cultural politics. It is just a MUSU bus - a mobile structure, a communication device. The participatory MUSU audience is taking a journey from a local context crossed by transnational situations. This geopolitical travel (MUSU road) is conducted by the MUSU guide. MUSU stops, which are created on the way, are in Ljubljana, Celje, Maribor, IKEA and Graz, where each of the places creates a specific meaning within its immediate content offered to the visitor by the visitor.
MUSU refers to the immediate situation of Slovenian cultural politics in relation to EU, crossed over with the critique of the general tendency within contemporary art institution; to develop into a commercially well represented, business oriented physical entity, which is well bedded within the hard core capitalist ideology.
MUSU fictional frame is combined with concrete geographic memory - the MUSU road is also the road to Graz (to Austria, to EU), which was for decades an important shopping destination, especially for the northern part of Slovenia. Shops like IKEA, daily visited by Slovenians today, are big-time global players constructing the image of our contemporary hybrid culture. For many people is the trip to IKEA a mayor cultural event and final tourist destination.
Nobody is "protected" in its consumerist and tourist role, but everybody has an opportunity to actively participate in re-thinking, questioning and contributing to the creation of constructive alternatives like MUSU.
Welcome to MUSU!
MUSU team