AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST : K.I.E.F.E.R. Kontrolle · Integration · Erhaltung · Form · Evolution · Reproduktion
This exhibition brings together four large-scale installations by Laibach, exploring the relationships between ideology, industrial heritage, collective memory and the state of permanent war — through painting, sound, video and spatial intervention.
The first section presents a cycle of monumental paintings from the Instrumentality of the State Machine series, executed on industrial tapestry and conceived as enlargements of early Laibach posters from the period 1980–1987. Signed under the names Eber, Saliger, Dachauer and Keller, the works function as archetypal remnants of a retro-avant-garde world of imagery and political iconography.
Red Districts + Black Cross draws on the industrial landscape of the Zasavje “red districts", the region where Laibach was born. Enlarged motifs from original linocuts by the painter Janez Knez create an almost sacred atmosphere in which industrial-mining aesthetics, collective memory and Laibach's symbolic language are interwoven.
At the heart of the exhibition stands ASSIMILATOR — an interactive black Laibach cube that functions as a system of sonic, visual and psychological absorption. The cube responds to the movement and presence of visitors, generating fragmented sounds from Laibach's collective subconscious. It operates simultaneously as a ritual machine, a meditative monolith and a metaphor for the collective mind.
The fourth installation, UNTERNEHMEN BARBAROSSA, consists of a monumental pen drawing and a tapestry woven to the dimensions of Picasso's Guernica — itself the primary reference point for the project. Woven and drawn after motifs by the partisan artist Nikolaj Pirnat, the work raises questions of war, propaganda, historical violence and the political instrumentalisation of images. The installation is completed by film documents and video projections connected to the making of the tapestry in Afghanistan.
AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST : K.I.E.F.E.R. is not a retrospective, but a spatial mechanism of images, sound and ideas — a total installation about the state, ritual, history and collective imagination. The exhibition title references the contemporary German artist Anselm Kiefer, whose work and material aesthetic resonate strongly with the space of Magazin Grando. Kiefer also exerted a significant influence on Laibach's visual iconography, with the group drawing on his motifs and atmosphere on multiple occasions.
AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST : K.I.E.F.E.R. brings together four large-scale installations by Laibach, exploring the relationships between ideology, industrial heritage, collective memory and the state of permanent war — through painting, sound, video and spatial intervention.
The exhibition includes monumental paintings from the Instrumentality of the State Machine series, the spatial installation Red Districts + Black Cross, the interactive sonic monolith ASSIMILATOR, and the monumental UNTERNEHMEN BARBAROSSA — a pen drawing and tapestry conceived after motifs from Picasso's Guernica and the partisan graphics of Nikolaj Pirnat.
This exhibition is not a retrospective, but a total installation about ideology, ritual, war and collective imagination.
Acknowledgements: The paintings from the Red Districts + Black Cross series are displayed with the permission and support of Dewesoft of Trbovlje, to whom we also extend our gratitude for their contribution to the realisation of the ASSIMILATOR project. The UNTERNEHMEN BARBAROSSA tapestry is exhibited in collaboration with and with the support of the non-profit organisation A/POLITICAL.
