Curated by Julia Draganovic and Claudia Löffelholz of LaRete Art Projects, promoted and organized by Civic Gallery of Modena and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the exhibition is organized as the first stage of an exhibition project in collaboration with the Kunsthalle Osnabrück (Germany) and the Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk (Poland) where, in 2015, two more will take place exhibitions dedicated to IRWIN.
The history of the Slovenian artistic collective began in 1983 from the partnership of young artists from the punk and graffiti movements of Ljubljana: Dušan Mandic, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik who came together and founded the Rrose Irwin Sélavy group, in honor of the female pseudonym of Marcel Duchamp.
In 1984, in collaboration with the musical group Laibach and the theater company Gledališce sester Scipion Nasice, they founded a large collective of artists known as Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), New Slovenian Art, which would later involve other artistic collectives active in graphics, video art and philosophy.
Collaboration and sharing are both the basis and the inevitable consequence of both IRWIN and the Neue Slowenische Kunst, which is positioned in the political and cultural reality of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. With the collapse of socialism, in the early 1992s, the assumptions of their artistic operation radically changed and in XNUMX the transformation of the Neue Slowenische Kunst into NSK State in Time took place. Following the emergence of a multitude of new states, the NSK collective then decides to objectify its nature in the form of a state. Not a territorial state, but a state of thought, which is expressed, in fact, through public appearances in cultural projects, thanks to which its image and its contents are outlined and multiple relationships are established between its citizens, which gradually increase thanks to the initiatives in which they participate.
After more than 30 years, IRWIN is today the longest-lived collective on the world art scene (except for artistic groups that are also couples in life, such as Gilbert & George or Eva & Adele). The exhibition at the Galleria Civica in Modena will focus on the group's collaboration strategies, both within the collective itself - which allows very different languages for each individual member - and on collaborations with others which include the multi-year NSK project, but also with artists such as Marina Abramovic, Andres Serrano or Joseph Beuys.
As part of the exhibition, the Consulate of NSK State in Time will also open, where it will be possible to request a passport which gives the right to add to one's citizenship that of the utopian nation, founded in 1992. As in other itinerant "passport-offices" opened in the past – including the first in Moscow in 1992 and the one at the MoMA in New York in 2012 – the opportunity is offered to reflect together on the possibility of a new state, and the extraordinary opportunity is also given to be able to acquire an alternative citizenship, which it adds to the national one, for all those who identify with the founding principles of NSK: equal opportunities and equality regardless of ethnic or national, sexual or religious affiliation.
In addition to the NSK State in Time consulate, the exhibition will present photographs, installations and videos that are the result of more than thirty years of collaborative practices that IRWIN has exercised together with some of the most significant artists and thinkers of our time, but also with citizens medium.
Slovenian art collective IRWIN
Symbols – for IRWIN – can have different meanings and connotations in different places and times thanks to the analysis of their origins. Their work, characterized by a sharp humor and marked ambiguity, expresses a complex and subtle connection between art and ideology. In 1984, in collaboration with the musical group Laibach and the theater company Gledališce sester Scipion Nasice, they founded a large collective of artists known as Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), or New Slovenian art, a partnership of artistic groups of multi-disciplinary origin search for ways out of the universe of local art, so closed and self-referential.
After the declarations of independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by Croatia and Slovenia, Neue Slowenische Kunst in 1992 founded the nation "NSK State in Time". Instead of claiming a territory, NSK relies on a "state of thought" whose boundaries change in relation to individual state members. At the time of its formation, “NSK State in Time” was defined as an abstract organism, a supremacist body installed in a real socio-political space constituted by the movement of the spirit and the work of individual members.
After twenty years, the citizens in possession of the passport of the "NSK State in Time" are more than fourteen thousand - belonging above all to the world of art, but not only - who never tire of reflecting on a new state, a state best, in which perhaps even a little happiness can be found. IRWIN has participated, among others, in projects presented at Manifesta, the Venice Biennale and the MoMA in New York.
Modena Civic Gallery (Palazzina dei Giardini, Corso Canalgrande, Modena)
March 15-June 2, 2014
