Igor Zabel Award 2026 programme
The ERSTE Foundation and the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory warmly invite you to the 2026 Igor Zabel Award Ceremony and its accompanying programme, taking place on 26–27 November 2026 in Ljubljana.
The programme brings together contemporary and historical avant-garde practices, forging connections across post-socialist and post-colonial contexts and geographies, while exploring how cultural infrastructures are sustained, reimagined, or rebuilt amid shifting political realities, conflict, and war.
Read more about the programme: https://award.igorzabel.org/programme
The programme is open to all. We invite you to join us!
THURSDAY ⁄ 26. 11.
CONVERSATIONS
Working Across Uncertain Grounds
15:00–16:30 ⁄ Lili Novy hall, Cankarjev dom
Contributors: Igor Zabel Award Grant recipients Tania Arcimovich, Octavian Esanu, and Alona Karavai
Moderators: Pia Brezavšček, Jakub Gawkowski, and Vasif Kortun.
The event explores questions of displacement, exile, and both forced and professional mobility, alongside the challenges of working within and beyond institutional structures amid political and economic instability, and war.
SCREENING
Grounded Sun ⁄ Relations
18:00–19:30 ⁄ Slovenian Cinematheque
A selection of avant-garde and experimental films and videos from the Kontakt Collection, the Slovenian Cinematheque Film Collection, and DIVA Station – Digital Video Archive.
Curators: Aleksei Borisionok and Peter Cerovšek
FRIDAY ⁄ 27. 11.
SEMINAR
Exhibiting Visual Art in Slovenia
10:00–12:30 ⁄ Švicarija, MGLC Tivoli
The seminar examines the historical development of Slovenia's extensive visual arts infrastructure, its sociopolitical context, and its specificities. Focusing on examples of the Museum of Modern Art and MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts, both based in Ljubljana, it examines the legacy of Socialist Yugoslavia and subsequent developments on this legacy.
The seminar includes lectures by Beti Žerovc and Zdenka Badovinac, and a guided tour by Božidar Zrinski and Dušan Dovč through MGLC and Švicarija Art Centre.
GUIDED TOUR
Presentation of the Cukrarna Gallery & guided tour of the exhibitions untranquil now and Špela Petrič: Eating Back
10:00–12:30 ⁄ Cukrarna Gallery
The untranquil now exhibition, curated by Corinne Diserens, features artworks primarily from the Hamburger Kunsthalle collection that explore bodies and modes of perception as agents of contradictory states and troubled histories. The Eating Back exhibition by Špela Petrič draws on her interventions in industrial greenhouses to explore the material, ideological, and social conditions of technologically optimised environments that shape the food we consume.
Places are limited, so please register via the registration form.
GUIDED TOUR
Guided tour of the The End exhibition by curator Vladimir Vidmar
15:00–17:00 ⁄ Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM)
The exhibition asks how to contend with the end that we are already living and will be dealing with for the foreseeable future, without veering into the utopian or dystopian, since neither hope nor despair provide a solid base or have much to contribute.
Places are limited, so please register via the registration form.
IGOR ZABEL AWARD 2026 CEREMONY
19:00–21:00 ⁄ Museum of Modern Art (MG+)
A presentation of this year’s Award and Grant recipients, a conversation with Laureate Nataliia Ivanova, moderated by journalist Kaja Puto, and a performance by percussionist Pavel Čebašek, followed by an informal gathering. The event takes place within a scenography created by artist Josef Dabernig.
The jury has awarded Nataliia Ivanova for her achievements as curator, educator, and the founding director of the Yermilov Centre in Kharkiv, Ukraine (2012–). Tania Arcimovich, Octavian Esanu, and Alona Karavai receive Igor Zabel Award Grants.
Read more about this year's laureate and grant recipients: https://award.igorzabel.org/recipients
The Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory honours the exceptional accomplishments of curators, art historians, and art writers whose work supports, develops, or investigates visual arts in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.
Produced by: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and ERSTE Foundation
Partners: MG+MSUM, Cankarjev dom, MGLC, Slovenian Cinematheque, Cukrarna Gallery