ART EXHIBITING IN SLOVENIA, FROM THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY TO TODAY: 1890–1918

Together with the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana we cordially invite you to attend the new series of public lectures under the title Art Exhibiting in Slovenia, from the Early 19th Century to Today. 

Within the seminar we are examining the development of exhibition practices and art institutions in Slovenia and Central Europe, as well as in the wider international context. Last year we began in the first half of the 19th century with the start of modern exhibition-making in the Slovene lands; this year and in the following years we then move through the evolution of exhibition-making and the institutionalization of the art field right up to the present day. We discuss various aspects of exhibition-making – institutions, exhibition installations, artworks, the audience, etc. – and examine selected phenomena relating to the institutionalization of art, especially exhibitions and ways to do them.

In the second year of the seminar, we look at art exhibiting in the Slovene lands and Central Europe from 1890 to 1918. In the Slovene lands, this period is marked by a pronounced expansion of the visual art field on various levels. We see a large growth in the number of working artists, many of whom join or come together in different formal and informal art associations, while some artists are also active on a broader cultural-political level. There are various initiatives for exhibiting and institutionalizing visual art, as well as several more visible actual achievements, such as the institution of the Slovene art exhibition (in 1900 and 1902 in Ljubljana, and 1907 in Trieste), Jakopič’s private exhibition space for contemporary art (1909), and the founding of the National Gallery Society (1918), which a few years later would acquire space in the building where the National Gallery is still housed today.

These advances at a provincial pace, follow the general European trends in the field of visual art and exhibition-making and are further defined, characteristically, by the position of the Slovene space and the political situation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The entire period is marked by an explicit nationalism, which compels artists to take a vocal political stance in their work and, if they have a Slovene sensibility, to move closer to the Slavic world (e.g. Prague or the Balkans) instead of the usual orientation towards Western art centres. Nevertheless, Vienna and Munich remain the key art centres for our region and provide artists with a fundamental frame of reference, which they develop in relation to, use as their touchstone, and cite in their work. This is true also from a cultural-political and organizational perspective: the infrastructures of those two cities, and especially their art societies and Secessionist associations, serve as influential cultural-political and economic models for the infrastructural activity and self-organization of Slovene artists. In the seminar we seek to shed light on these developments, in part by reflecting on art institutions and exhibitions as mechanisms that arise from or at least are fuelled by the political and agitational needs of certain national and political groups. Exhibition-making proves to be, among other things, a crucial medium in the rapid construction and establishment of the phenomenon of Slovene visual art.

Beti Žerovc, head of the programme

TOMAŽ BREJC
Ideas, Terms, Exhibitions and Paintings at the Beginning of Modernism

First Lecture: An Apology of Modern Art
15 January 2018, 7 pm, Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording (in Slovene)

Second Lecture: Impression, Mood, Empathy and Expression
16 January 2018, 7 pm, Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording (in Slovene)

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KATJA MAHNIČ
Josip Mantuani and the Painting Collection of the Provincial Museum of Carniola (1909–1924)
9 January 2018, 2.30 pm, Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording  (in Slovene)

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GUDRUN DANZER
The Art System in Graz from the Founding of the Styrian Art Society in 1865 until the End of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918, part I
Monday, 4 December 2017, 7 pm,  Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording

The Art System in Graz from the Founding of the Styrian Art Society in 1865 until the End of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918, part II
Tuesday, 5 December 2017, 7 pm,  Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording

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MICHELLE FACOS
Artists, Exhibitions and Institutions in the United States 1890–1918
Monday, 6 November 2017, 7 pm,  Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording

Artists, Exhibitions and Institutions in Scandinavia 1890–1918
Tuesday, 7 November 2017, 7 pm,  Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording

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GAŠPER CERKOVNIK
Christian Art Society of Ljubljana
Monday, 23 October 2017, 12 am,  Faculty of Arts (room 343), Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana
Video recording (in Slovene)

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Organized by: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory; Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
Supported by: ERSTE Foundation, Austrian Cultural Forum