Franc Purg, presentation of the book What Is It That Moves Us?

Thursday, 6 December 2012, 6 p.m.
Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Maistrova 3

You are kindly invited to the presentation of Franc Purg's book What is it that moves us? The book is a selection of Purg's works that engage through existential questioning some of the critical issues of contemporary society. The book spans over 30 years of work, and includes a selection of Purg's sculpture, video, drawing, photography, performance and interactive installations. With essays by Dave Beech, Irena Čerčnik, Petra Kapš, Nevenka Šivavec and Igor Zabel, the works are presented in five chapters:

1. Coming Soon, the Future (critical reactions to contemporary politically charged situations)

2. Initimate Stoies (poetic, personal response to social phenomena)

3. Coincidences and Mistakes (early formal works)

4. Anger (engagement with institutions and ideologies)

5. What do you Need? (small scall attempts to engage with specific urban situations)

The book will be presented by the artist, also the book's editor, in conversation with Martina Vovk, the Moderna galerija's curator, who wrote on the book's cover: "Franc Purg - unlike the politicians - takes the slogan Crisis is opportunity! most seriously. In his work he exhibits how the areas of crisis, of social, economic, ecological and political margin, are the hatcheries of human ingenuity and alternative knowledge of survival skills from which there is a great deal to be learned. Franc transforms this knowledge into artworks that act as determinately oriented pointers indicating the cancerous ulcerations lacerating the tissue of contemporary society but simultaneously search for remedies accessible to all. The work of Franc, however, does not lack in subtlety and humour that characterise him as an artist of exceptional social sensitivity and incurable hope that a better world is still possible".

About the book: edition number: 540, date published: 2012, retail price: £23