THE EVENT, The 29th Biennial of Graphic Art, Ljubljana
23 September - 20 November 2011
List of exhibited artists and projects:
Ant Farm, Oreet Ashery, Bababa International, Robert Barry, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Jerzy Beres, Karmelo Bermejo, Anna Berndtson, Conny Blom, Janos Borsos, Tania Bruguera, Graciela Carnevale, Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkacova, Marcus Coates, Brody Condon, Alain Della Negra & Kaori Kinoshita, Marco Evaristti, Terry Fox, Dora Garcia, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nuria Guell, Manuel Hartmann, Alfredo Jaar, Jasa, Enrique Jezik, Regina Jose Galindo, San Keller, Daniel Knorr, Bozena Koncic Badurina, Gregor Kregar, Sinisa Labrovic, Liz Magic Laser, Marcello Maloberti, Teresa Margolies, Kris Martin, Dalibor Martinis, Dane Mitchell, Shana Moulton, Kusum Normoyle, OHO Group / The Sempas Family/ Milenko Matanovic / David Nez/ Marko Pogacnik, Once Is Nothing (presentation of an exhibition curated by Maria Hlavajova and Charles Esche as part of the 2008 Brussels Biennial), Serkan Ozkaya, Kim Paton, Mark Pozlep, Praxis (Brainard & Delia Carey), Public Movement, Franc Purg & Sara Heitlinger, Sal Randolph, Marusa Sagadin, Hans Schabus, Santiago Sierra, Mladen Stropnik, Sz.A.F., Tan Ting, Unguarded Money (presentation of an action carried out in Budapest in 1956 by Miklos Erdely, his friends, and members of the Hungarian Writers Union), Matej Andraz Vogrincic, Wang Jin, Anna Witt
The art event - the central theme of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana - experienced a remarkable development in the twentieth century and today appears as a privileged medium. It is employed by a broad range of different figures from the world of contemporary visual art in a broad spectrum of forms. At the exhibition, which seeks above all to present as fully as possible the energy and vitality of this trend, a selection of art events is presented in four different categories, based on typical themes in contemporary art: violence, generosity, emptiness, and the search for the sacred and the ritualistic. These themes were selected, among other reasons, because the events that address them also meet the requirement of not being anything novel, either in the iconographic motifs of art or in actual human or social practice. Events that allow us to partake in violence with impunity, in the artist's "shamanic" violence to himself, in Dionysian or absurdist rituals, or in the creation of an idyllic communitas for the sharing of a common meal - these represent practices that humans have been doing, and even depicting, for millennia.
In the exhibition, as well as in an extensive programme of artistic and theoretical events, the Biennial asks the questions: Why and how has the event in particular become a suitable vehicle for such a great variety of artistic aims, aesthetics, and content? Is the choice of this medium a response to specific impulses and voids in our "desacralized" everyday existence? Also, what are the potential dangers of such a development, given that it is happening more and more in the completely formalized framework of art institutions, which in recent decades not only house and exhibit contemporary art, but also commission and produce it, thus becoming commissioners of contemporary art of a type and scope as only the aristocracy and the church had been before them?
The curator of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana is Beti Žerovc.