DIVA Station and National Theatre Museum/Institute
Race with Time. Performance
and Video in a Rear-view Mirror
Exhibition and panel discussion

June 5–16, 2014
Slovenski gledališki inštitut (National Theatre Museum/Institute), Mestni trg 17, Ljubljana

Exhibition opening:
Thursday, June 5 at 7 pm

Panel discussion:
Thursday, June 12 at 7 pm

Race with Time

Action, happening and performance had been a direct reaction to the prevailing formalist and market-driven art in the 1950s and 1960s. As the new means of expression at the intersection of visual art and theatre, they have somehow been pertinent to both fields; nonetheless, they have regularly been overlooked from the canonised history books and surveys.

In the context of Conceptual Art and New Artistic Practices, video art has met a similar reception. Apart from being a strongly individualistic activity, performance and video share various other features, such as inappropriate production conditions and lack of critical writing. It is also questionable whether they have found a pertinent field of representation, in the sense that the gallery is the field of representation of visual art, theatre of performing art, and the movie theatre that of film; while, television and the Internet seem to be the testing ground for all manners of production. It is also possible that performance and video mostly belong to the fields of other art forms, often overlapping and integrating other so-called new media.

The relationship between performance and video has always been multilayered and followed a preceding relation between film and action.

EXHIBITION

Race with Time. Performance and Video in a Rear-view Mirror

5–16 June, 2014
Exhibition opening: Thursday, June 5 at 7 pm
Slovenski gledališki inštitut (National Theatre Museum/Institute), Mestni trg 17, Ljubljana

The exhibition is open: Tuesday (June 10)-Friday (June 13), 11.00-15.00 or on request (contact: info@scca-ljubljana.si, tel: 051 361 681)

Curator: Barbara Borčić

The relationship between performance art and video art could be schematically demonstrated by four modes: 1) video as a document of performance, 2) video as a part of performance / performance as a part of video, 3) (video) performance, staged only for the camera, and 4) performance made possible only through video, its expressive and technological possibilities for processing and editing.

EXHIBITED WORKS:

Nuša and Srečo Dragan: Video Painting (Masculin-feminin), 1979
video action

Miha Vipotnik: Videogram 4, 1976–79
video tapes from studio recordings and art video

Marko A. Kovačič: Casus belli, 1983
video performance

Martina Bastarda, Mateja Ocepek, Nataša Skušek: Pissing, 2002
action for camera(outdoors)

Duba Sambolec: Collectors #3, *Settings*, 2002
video performance (a part of installation Collectors #3)

Tomaž Furlan: Wear IV–VI, 2005
performances for camera (studio)

Ana Čigon: One More Kick, 2009
performance for camera (cadre)

Mateja Bučar: The Unnoticed, 2013–2014
urban choreography

Exhibition view

Photo: Dušan Nelec (SGM)

PANEL DISCUSSION

Thursday, June 12 at 7 pm
Slovenski gledališki inštitut (National Theatre Museum/Institute), Mestni trg 17, Ljubljana

Concept: Barbara Borčić, Primož Jesenko
Moderators: Dušan Dovč, Ida Hiršenfelder
Guests: Barbara Borčić, Jurij Krpan, Primož Jesenko, Rok Vevar

Documentation and archive are prerequisite for any historisation and interpretation of video art and performance art, which also enable exhibitions and other presentations. SCCA began integrating time-based art (apart from video) into its DIVA Station archive as early as 2012.

To emphasise the meaning of audio-visual archives and their accessibility SCCA conducts research, curates exhibitions and organises educational seminars in order to present the local circumstances, compare them to successful international practices, and establish long term collaborations. We work on the premises that in the present day documentation and archiving are necessary for the understanding of contemporary visual and media art practices. Establishing archives, promoting their use, accessibility, dissemination and defining their ownership are important questions that are still not sufficiently present in the Slovenian cultural environment. We have set ourselves a task to present significant archival models (experimental, systematic, partial) that are already in use, to address and promote their functionalities and mutual interconnections. Furthermore, we wish to support and promote the practice of open and constructive exchange and collaboration, and trigger the institutional change, i.e. to make possible the integration of the media/video art archives in the sector of the national cultural heritage.

The idea to stage the exhibition and panel discussion Race with Time. Performance and Video in a Rear-view Mirror precisely in the National Theatre Museum/Institute is a result of shared somewhat mutual dilemmas and future plans, even though not under similar conditions of operation; and most of all, we all feel the need to connect various archives and initiatives in Slovenia in order to mutually strive for appropriate conceptual and financial conditions that would allow for the archives to (co)exist and operate, whether they be institutional or private, professional or artistic …

Photo: Dušan Nelec (SGM)

CREDITS

Production: SCCA-Ljubljana, 2014

Co-production: Slovenski gledališki inštitut (National Theatre Museum/Institute)

Curator: Barbara Borčić
Exhibition design: Ida Hiršenfelder
Concept of the panel discussion: Barbara Borčić, Primož Jesenko
Moderators: Dušan Dovč, Ida Hiršenfelder
Guests: Barbara Borčić, Primož Jesenko, Jurij Krpan, Rok Vevar
Web support: Vesna Bukovec
Support: Ljubljana Municipality, Department for Culture, 2014
Thanks: Ivo Svetina, Tea Rogelj, Sandra Jenko, Dušan Nelec (Slovenski gledališki inštitut), Jure Gorjanc (Center projekcije), Katerina Mirović (Strip Core c/o Forum Ljubljana), Sebastian Krawczyk (KUD Mreža/Alkatraz Gallery)

[Published June 1, 2014]