Forma viva Portorož 2025
The Piran Coastal Galleries are kicking off autumn with a diverse range of artistic events that combine rich tradition, contemporary creativity and international cooperation. The highlight is the Forma viva sculpture symposium in Seča, near Portorož, where for over six decades invited sculptors have been creating exceptional artistic masterpieces in Istrian stone.
This year, Forma viva offers an extraordinary artistic dialogue between two generations. We will relive the memories of Italian sculptor Aldo Calò, who participated in the 1963 symposium. His great-grandson Giorgio Andreotta Calò, one of the most important contemporary Italian artists, will reconstruct the “lost” sculpture from the Squarcio series this year, thus creating a bridge between the past and the present. The copy, identical to the original, will be made on the basis of drawings, photographs and documentation preserved in the archives of the Piran Coastal Galleries. The sculpture will be made by hand, with chisel and hammer, in collaboration with an international group of sculptors. The curator of the project is Mara Ambrožič Verderber, director of the GCP.
The event began in mid-September with the opening of the construction site and offers a rich accompanying programme. Among other things, Wednesday 1st October 2025 will be Open Day: from 11:00 to 12:30 there will be a public debate entitled “Stone statues and the role of Forma viva in the 21st century” (with Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Ištvan Išt Huzjan and Max Seibald); and from 4:30 p.m., there will be a meeting with Forma viva enthusiasts in the Sezza sculpture park. At the same time, there will be workshops for schools and intergenerational workshops, as well as visits by national and foreign experts.
The symposium will conclude on Saturday, 11 October 2025, in Sezza, near Portorož. At 1 p.m., we will present the new sculpture by Giorgio A. Calò, followed at 2 p.m. by the dance and music performance Tihi utrip by dancer Evin Hadžialjević accompanied by percussionist Boris Magdalenc. The event will conclude with the traditional gathering with roasted chestnuts and wine.
Exhibition by Florian Cziesla at the Medusa Gallery in Koper
On Thursday, 2 October 2025, at 6 p.m., the Medusa Gallery will host the opening of Florian Cziesla’s photography exhibition entitled The Changing Sea. Cziesla is a photographer, cultural studies researcher and translator. His photography focuses on the concepts of ambiguity and transience as well as issues of belonging and becoming. His works are based on the exploration of ideas through photography, tending towards the abstract and mysterious, where forms, textures and the play of light and shadow intertwine. He also draws inspiration from specific spaces, landscapes or environments and socio-cultural contexts. Occasionally, both approaches merge into one, as in the case of this exhibition.
The Change of the Sea explores these themes and aesthetic approaches through a series of specific landscape photographs, originally analogue, on 35mm film, taken in three Slovenian coastal towns: Koper, Izola and Piran. The abstract visual meditations address viewers with intimate and open compositions, inviting them to linger, feel and reflect on the author’s initial ideas. The exhibition is curated by Master Matic Bukovac.
IZIS – contemporary art festival
Since 2013, the IZIS Festival has been an annual exhibition event showcasing innovative and internationally recognised audiovisual and new media arts. The thirteenth edition of the festival focuses on information noise and explores the (in)capabilities of communication in the age of communication capitalism. It asks what happens to a message in a mass of pseudo-truths, disinformation, fake news, as well as in the hyperinflation of images and content created by machines, such as “bots” or artificial intelligence. Is it really desirable for the message sent to reach its destination? How can we address urgent issues and communicate differently in an age of fragmented and meaningless information circulation?
The IZIS 2025 Festival programme will take place in various venues and exhibition spaces in Koper: the Loggia Gallery, the Gravisi-Buttorai Palace Gallery, the Bastion, in containers and with interventions in public spaces. The performance, spatially fragmented from 17 October to 3 November 2025, connects the festival’s intermedia, musical and performative sequences, emphasising the intertwining of content. The curator of the IZIS 2025 festival exhibition is Irena Borić.
More information at the link…
Jasmina Cibic at Avditorij Portorož – Portorož
On 22 October 2025 at 12:00 noon in the Green Hall of Avditorij Portorož – Portorož, there will be a meeting with Jasmina Cibic, an internationally renowned artist and one of the most important Slovenian artists on the world art scene. The event is part of the 28th Slovenian Film Festival and offers a rare opportunity for an in-depth dialogue with the artist, who lives and works in London. At the meeting, Jasmina Cibic will reveal the background to her new and extensive production and talk about her exploration of the intersections between cinema, performance and visual art.
You are kindly invited!
