The Second Explosion – the ’90s
National Museum of Slovenia – Metelkova, Ljubljana
6 December 2016 – 12 February 2017
It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of the exhibition The Second Explosion – the ’90s on Tuesday, December 6, at 19:00 at the National Museum of Slovenia – Metelkova in Ljubljana.
The project’s final exhibitions will be held at the National Museum of Slovenia – Metelkova, the P74 Gallery, the Škuc Gallery, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška and the Carinthian Regional Museum.
Jože Barši, There are many answers to the question about why to grow vegetables, 1997
Installation, Ateneo di san Basso, Venice
Photo: Matija Pavlovec. Courtesy of the artist and P74 Gallery
The Second Explosion – the ’90s (2014-2017) is an educational and research project that spans several years. It is a joint effort between the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška, Slovenj Gradec. It includes a series of public lectures and two exhibitions at the P74 Gallery (2014 and 2015), which were focused on the wider cultural and social context of the 1990s. The project has a twofold nature – its two perspectives of the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ are crucial for understanding and showcasing a more complex, comprehensive image.
The exhibition The Second Explosion – the ’90s will feature a first look at the radical practices in Slovenian visual art in the 1990s. It will present works and projects by Jože Barši, Vuk Ćosić, Maja Licul, Marko Peljhan, Alenka Pirman, Tadej Pogačar, Marjetica Potrč, Marija Mojca Pungerčar, Franc Purg, Anja Šmajdek, Nika Špan, Apolonija Šušteršič and Janja Žvegelj. The exhibition will feature concepts, objects, sculptures, installations, video projects, web projects, photos, audio projects, artists’ books and newspapers, print and original documentation.
After the explosion of the Neo-avant-garde in the ’60s, primarily heralded in Slovenia by the OHO group, the ’90s brought a second explosion of artistic production, which was, in its own way, a continuation of the radical art practices from the ’60s and ’70s. The exhibitions in Ljubljana showcase a segment of artistic production that we might label as ‘art after post-modernism’.
The opening of the exhibition at the National Museum will be followed a few days later by the ones in Slovenj Gradec, at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška and the Carinthian Museum on December 9, and by the exhibitions in the P74 Gallery and the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana on December 15, 2016.
The exhibition New Artistic Practices in the ’90s: Koroška presents the cultural artistic happenings and practices in the 1990s in the Koroška region which looked to new trends and stood out as extraordinary examples of practice. The field of non-institutional culture was particularly prolific for the development of sub-cultural practices. It was the first time that the emerging youth sub-culture intervened more noticeably in traditionalistic, local-oriented and backwards gazing cultural atmosphere and addressed the younger generations with alternative contents that took place in unconventional venues and through new forms of events.
A joint exhibition catalogue will be published, with texts by Božo Repe, Andreja Hribernik, Barbara Sterle Vurnik, Nina Popič, Polona Poberžnik, Dejan Habicht, Tadej Pogačar, Tjaša Pogačar Podgornik and Vladimir Vidmar.
The project was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana and the Erste Foundation.
