MSUM: The Present and Presence

A selection of works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection and the national collection
of Moderna galerija

Jury Albert, Nika Autor, Mirosłav Bałka, Jože Barši, Viktor Bernik, Borghesia, Carlfriedrich Claus, Vuk Ćosić, Vlasta Delimar, Braco Dimitrijević, Róza El-Hassan, Stano Filko, Vadim Fiškin, Bojan Gorenec, Gorgona, Tomaž Gregorič, Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, Dmitry Gutov, Dejan Habicht, Jusuf Hadžifejzović, Jenny Holzer, International Strike of Artists, Ištvan Išt Huzjan, Irwin, Sanja Iveković, Sanja Iveković & Dalibor Martinis, Janez Janša & Janez Janša & Janez Janša, Sergej Kapus, Žiga Kariž, Komar & Melamid, Alexandr Kosolapov, Marko Kovačič, Ivan Kožarić (Gorgona), Zofia Kulik, Kwiekulik, Laibach, Yuri Leiderman, Zmago Lenardič & Jasna Hribernik, Kazimir Malevich, David Maljković, Vlado Martek, Anja Medved & Nadja Velušček, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec , Alex Mlynárčik, Paul Neagu, New Collectivism, New Collectivism & Scipion Nasice Theatre, Neue Slowenische Kunst, OHO (Marko Pogačnik), OHO (Tomaž Šalamun), Oktobar 75, Oral Histories, Dimitry Orlach, Tanja Ostojić, Alen Ožbolt, Adrian Paci, Marko Peljhan, Amalia Perjovschi, Dan Perjovschi, Goran Petercol, Alenka Pirman, Tadej Pogačar, Marko Pogačnik, Marjetica Potrč, Dmitry Prigov, Marija Mojca Pungerčar, Punk Museum, Franc Purg, Tobias Putrih, Alexandr Roitburd, Vinko Rozman, Arsen Savadov & Georgiy Senchenko, Nedko Solakov, Son: Da, Zora Stančič, Mladen Stilinović, Tone Stojko, Nebojša Šerić-Šoba, Nika Špan, Jane Štravs, Miha Štrukelj, Raša Todosijević, Slaven Tolj, Endre Tót, Goran Trbuljak, TV Gallery, Jiří Valoch, Josip Vaništa (Gorgona), Gyula Várnai, Sašo Vrabič, Edvard Zajec, Konstantin Zvezdochiotov, Želimir Žilnik, Dragan Živadinov: Dunja Zupančič: MihaTuršič

Curated by Zdenka Badovinac, Bojana Piškur, Igor Španjol

Team of co-authors: Dunja Blažević (TV Gallery), Andreja Hribernik (Oral Histories), Igor Vidmar (Punk Museum)

Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM), Maistrova 3, Ljubljana

While the exhibition of works from the national collection at Moderna galerija/ Museum of Modern Art ends with 1991, i.e. the year Slovenia gained independence, the display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSUM) includes works dating back to the 1960s. Contemporaneity has two beginnings: a conceptual one in the 1960s, when most of the aesthetic concepts artists are interested in today were shaped; and a chronological one in the beginning of the 1990s, when the new era began, marked by the fall of Eastern European communist regimes, the collapse of Yugoslavia and several other multinational states, rapid globalization, and the increasingly widespread use of digital technology. The concept of contemporaneity and the related concentration of specific artistic interests thus cannot be treated only chronologically. For this reason the exhibition of the collection at the MSUM problematizes time and focuses on its liberating potential.
The present is not necessarily the same as contemporaneity. Giorgio Agamben argues that to be contemporary means to be inattuale ? irrelevant or not suited to the time: "Those who are truly contemporary, who truly belong to their time, are those who neither perfectly coincide with it nor adjust themselves to its demands. They are thus in this sense irrelevant [inattuale]. But precisely because of this condition, precisely through this rejection and this anachronism, they are more capable than others of perceiving and grasping their own time." Contemporaneity, as understood in these terms, is called presence; this means an active relationship towards one's own time. Meanwhile, here the current chronological period is called as the present, that is to say, the period in which we are living. Contemporary art must be described as belonging at one and the same time both to the present and to presence.

* Giorgio Agamben, "What is Contemporary?", What Is an Apparatus? And Other Essays, tr. David Kishik and Stephen Petadella, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., USA 2009, p. 40.

The project is supported by:

Media sponsor: