The Piran Coastal Galleries entered the new year full of fresh plans and challenges. They will continue with their rich exhibitions and numerous other activities. The 2023 programme is diverse and conceived to be interdisciplinary and multi-layered. Collaborations with other similar Slovenian and foreign institutions as well as productions of exhibitions of Primorska, Slovenian, and foreign artists of different generations will also continue. The Galleries will open their doors to new challenges and experiences and carry on the established traditional projects.
Last year’s programme was prepared in such a way that important exhibitions opened not long before the end of 2022 continue into this year. One of these is an exceptional installation of MARJETICA POTRČ in the Piran City Gallery entitled WATER AND LAND. In her work the world-renowned Slovenian artist connects visual art with architecture, ecology, and anthropology, and emphasises the importance of raising awareness and engaging an individual as well as the community in the effective and long-term solution of everyday problems.
The Water and Land project includes three visual essays and diagrams with which the artist brings attention to co-existence and the necessity of collaboration between people and nature. The visual essay Land of Caretakers: A Ballad of Piran pertains to the current challenges of Piran and the Istrian hinterland. The work dedicated to the specifics of the local environment was created during a several-month-long study conducted in conversations with the inhabitants of Piran. The Land of Caretakers diagram, which is transmitted into the form of a large painting onto the central gallery wall, appears monumental and is a unique hommage to the coastal territory and its inhabitants. This exhibition which received a lot of media coverage continues to thrill the Slovenian and foreign expert public and will be open until 5 March 2023. More info at…
The Loža Gallery in Koper hosts the DISSIDENT HISTORIES exhibition of the renowned partnership of MARINA GRŽINIĆ & AINA ŠMID until 28 February 2023. Through different content (audio-video, printed posters, installations, projections, book collection), the authors, who are featuring in the Piran Coastal Galleries and in the national public museum space for the first time, set new milestones in art with their experimental video. Video was transformed into a political medium and aesthetics into mass culture, by which the authors transformed the field of words, painting, and performativeness. Their stories are set at the crossroads of documentary and fiction, while their videos are conceived in such a way that they point to the processes of social contradictions, racial discrimination, and expropriation on the side of capital. With the Pure Freedom work, which is a sort of a signpost for the exhibition, the artists convey the idea that the main cause of wars and other armed conflicts in the world is globalisation that is fuelled by the spirit of the capitalist “first world”. Their works teach us how to recognise the appropriations of the visual from the side of the post-industrial, digital, economic, and political systems and help fit the political fight into the right place. More info at…
In 2023, special attention will be devoted to ANDRAGOGIC AND PEDAGOGIC ACTIVITIES. The latter also introduces the annual programme of activities for our youngest visitors. Last autumn, the Sečovlje Primary School in cooperation with the Piran Coastal Galleries put forward a call for the making of the artistically most interesting new-year greeting card. A total of 36 schools from all around Slovenia responded and we received 544 greeting card entries. The selection of the most interesting ones was made by a three-member committee composed of: Andreja Ozebek, a professor of fine arts, Ana Papež, a curator in the Piran Coastal Galleries, and Fulvia Zudič, a painter and costume designer. The best greeting cards are exhibited in the Sečovlje Primary School, and from 24 January 2023 to 5 February 2023 also in the Herman Pečarič Gallery in Piran. The committee was so impressed by the greeting cards that it awarded 15 awards instead of nine.
Again this year, we are preparing a special programme for adults and a diverse programme for children on the occasion of the Slovenian Cultural Holiday. The PREŠERNOVANJE OGP 2023 event will take place on Wednesday, 8 February 2023, in the galleries in Koper and Piran. On this day, all our galleries will be open until 8 pm and admission will be free.
In the Loža Gallery in Koper a TALK WITH COFFEE will accompany the Dissident Histories exhibition of Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid at 10 am, where we will be joined by both authors. At 12 pm, a GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION Water and Land with the author Marjetica Potrč will take place in the Piran City Gallery.
A rich pedagogical programme within the framework of the PREŠERNOVANJE OGP 2023 event, prepared by the curator-educator of the Piran Coastal Galleries Ana Papež, will this year be devoted to the topic of movement. Regular exercise and taking part in sport are important factors in our everyday life, since they prevent many health risks and bring numerous benefits. A lack of interest and motivation for movement and sport is, unfortunately, common among young people today: it can be increasingly noticed that the majority of young people only exercise as much as it is obligatory in their sports class at school. To make movement understood as one of the means of expression in modern cultural practices, the Piran Coastal Galleries will once again, as in recent years, invite primary and secondary schools from all around Slovenia, and just over the borders, to participate. Students can interpret movement in various graphical techniques: monotype, pochoir technique, or collage print. For ease, an on-line GRAPHIC LESSON will be available. All graphic pieces created within the workshops on this subject will be presented at the exhibition entitled GIBANJE JE ZABAVNO upon this year’s Slovenian Cultural Holiday, which will be open to the public from 8 February to 26 February 2023 in the Herman Pečarič Gallery in Piran and the Meduza Gallery in Koper.
On Wednesday, 8 February 2022, a 60-minute DANCE WORKSHOP will take place in the Piran City Gallery at 11 am, which will be led by the dancer, choreographer, and CEO of the SWANK dance school Tamara Perić. Through dance we will familiarise ourselves with different rhythms and cultures, improve our motor skills, mobility, memory, encourage creativity, and have fun. The workshop is intended for pupils from the 5th to 9th grade of primary school. We are accepting applications at the e-mail address: ana.papez@obalne-galerije.si or anapapez25@gmail.com.
February will be rich in workshops: on Friday, 24 February and Saturday, 25 February 2023, between 8 am and 4 pm, TWO WORKSHOPS entitled POT ŠTORTA – Matteoti and Oljčna pot (the meeting point is the bus station in Piran) will take place, which are part of the accompanying programme of the afore-mentioned exhibition. Informal workshops organised in collaboration with the landscape architect Romana Kačič (Abakkum, Zavod za krajino, kulturo in umetnost Piran), University of Primorska (PEF VUO), and the Piran Local Community are a best practice example of cooperation between inhabitants, students, and the civic administration. They are focused on preserving, maintaining, and repairing paths for present and future generations, since paths among gardens are a common good and one of the key elements in the mosaic of a sustainable town. More info at…
Last year, the Piran Coastal Galleries acquired more artworks for their collections than in previous years. The donation of Emil Memon and purchases of works by Lara Jeranko Marconi, Tilen Žbona, and Aleksander Velišček – paintings, a drawing, a sculpture, and a video – enabled the quality filling of the fond of one of the basic collections of this Primorska establishment, that is the Collection of Primorska fine artists. In accordance with the traditional exhibiting activities that include the annual execution of an international painting manifestation, the Ex-tempore Piran Collection becomes richer by the year. The Grand Prix award was presented to the painting of Matic Moškon, while the recipient of the Young Award was Blažka Križan from Ptuj. The minimalist work of the established Slovenian artist Mladen Stropnik was awarded the Cesare dell'Acqua Award, which bears the name of the painter born in Piran in the 19th century.
We look forward to seeing you!
