For Your Pleasure. Feminist Positions in Visual Art from Slovenia, selection |
Piran Coastal Galleries in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, MG+ |
Piran Civic Gallery 17.05.2024 – 18.08.2024 –
Opening: 17. 05. 2024 at 18 pm |
Curators: dr. Martina Vovk and Kristjan Sedej,
Selection: Mara Ambrožič Verderber and dr. Majda Božeglav Japelj
Group exhibition: Lina Akif , Vanja Bućan, Vesna Bukovec, Eclipse, Olja Grubic, Đejmi Hadrović, Maja Hodošček, Mankica Kranjec, Anka Krašna, Meta Krese, Tanja Lažetić, Agate Lielpētere, Duba Sambolec, Maja Smrekar, Zora Stančič
Tanja Lažetić, Neznane žrtve, 2023
Duba Sambolec, Delavski razred na pohodu, 1976
Foto: Dejan Habicht / Moderna galerija, Ljubljana
The exhibition presents artistic production focusing on gender and gender-related discrimination, on sexism and the inequality of women (and all who identify as women), with discrimination manifesting at the intersections of gender and other categories and circumstances, such as class, labor, race, nationality, sexual identity, and age.
Feminist positions in visual art in and from Slovenia can be understood as those positions that address issues of gender in the theme of the artwork; that use styles, techniques, and media in critical, ironic or subversive ways; or that conceive or practice methods of artistic creation and action in ways that depart from the conventional notion of an autonomous work of art or authorship and its predictable result of reproducing the patriarchal-capitalist order. All artworks based on feminist positions share the aim of bringing about – through their imaginative and affective potential of articulating ideas and concepts in compelling visual, material, spatial, performative, and processual forms – a transformative effect capable of producing permanent sociopolitical change.
There are thus several instances of early feminist art in Slovenia, all of them equally valid and sharing a determining trait – the realization of articulating gender-based social discrimination as the main theme of the artistic statement or method of artistic work. Like elsewhere in the world, feminist themes in artistic production in Slovenia generally came to the fore only once the demand for the equality of the sexes had been clearly articulated in the broader social sphere. In the Yugoslav context, this happened with the new feminism of the late 1970s (marked by the Comrade Woman conference in Belgrade in 1978), while in Slovenia the new feminist movement formulated the issue of the equality of women and sexual minorities as a political issue during the time of the civil society movements in the 1980s. Ever since, from the time of late socialism through the transition to present-day capitalism, artists in Slovenia (predominantly female) have been creating art testifying to the fact that the feminist awareness of gender inequality is increasingly productive, with themes that encompass more and more aspects of the social and the personal.
The areas and topics of interest of the artists presented at the exhibition coincide with those of feminist theory, social movements, and political action. They emerge as universal feminist themes outlining numerous specific positions, personal iconographies, figurations, memories, investigations, performative actions, and individual artistic statements in the perspective of gender-based discrimination and through the prism of the intersection with other areas of discrimination, above all labor, class, race, nationality, and LGBTIQ+ identities.
