ART EXHIBITING IN SLOVENIA, FROM THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY TO TODAY: 1919–1969

In this series of public lectures we will discuss the development of art, its exhibiting and institutions in Slovenia, in the Central European and broader international framework, between 1919 and 1969. The troubled period after World War I was characterized by the shock upon the disintegration of the so-called double monarchy, which ended several centuries of our inclusion in the Austrian cultural space, its standards and infrastructure. Suddenly, Slovenians were divided among several countries, with the majority becoming citizens of the newly established and culturally diverse Yugoslav monarchy, which for a long time remained without a common and effective cultural policy. After a few decades and the upheaval of World War II, the centralistic monarchy was replaced by the federal, socialist system with a new perspective on culture and art and their role in society. 

We will try to understand how, in such a politically charged environment, art and exhibiting emerge and establish themselves. We will consider the relation between an exhibition and art and examine which exhibitions in Slovenia are successful and what most often goes wrong in exhibiting. We will pay attention to who organizes and/or funds the exhibitions and why. The common thread of the lectures will be a discussion of select examples of exhibiting. How did Avgust Černigoj, Neodvisni, and the OHO Group exhibit and why did they do it the way they did? We will ask how and why the period after WWII saw an accelerated institutionalization of contemporary art and the expansion of cyclical exhibitions. While interpreting concrete examples, we will discover the inner logic and the principles of the way that the Slovenian art system operates.

Beti Žerovc, head of the programme

PETAR PRELOG
New Art Meets the Audience: Exhibitions in Croatia between the Two World Wars
1 March 2021, online lecture
Read more
Video recording (in Croatian)

Organized by: Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and Igor Zabel Association