calendario eventi  :: 

X

8/1/2009

This is not America

Institute P74 Center and Gallery, Ljubljana

At the end of 1993, the institution Museum of Contemporary Arts – which had been founded in 1990 by artist Tadej Pogacar – officially adopted the resolution to change its name to P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Arts (PMCA). PMCA functions as a virtual institution which "exists without its own space and employees, but rather merely settles into territories, locations and networks and feeds off the juices of institutions" and operates according to the principles of "new parasitism".

Reflecting on this, Misko Suvakovic has written:
"The artistic and political approach of Tadej Pogačar converts biopolitics or eco-politics into the theory and praxis of artistic or cultural-political parasitism. His political parasitism is a new "para-ecological strategy" inside of art which operates directly with textures and tissues of the historical and geographical culture of society. Pogačar's political parasitism is neither entirely critical nor deceptive, but rather, transgressive."

In fifteen years of operation, Tadej Pogacar and P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Arts has created, organised and coordinated numerous events, actions, public interventions, performances, exhibitions, projections, roundtables, etc. It has been a "guest" of museum collections, galleries, schools, universities, personal homes, public spaces, streets. Their work takes the form of installations, photography, video, image-text collages, performances and public intervention.

Critical interventions in museum collections during the first years of operation problematised the accumulation of science and knowledge: How is science/knowledge created, structured and arranged? Who claims it, expands it and puts it to use? How is "truth" structured? The second related question is a question of social visibility: what is visible and what is invisible in society, what do we understand as a "natural" condition of society and what is "unnatural"?

The installation for the fifteenth anniversary returns to these questions, as well as exposes the theme of historical narration and its methods, such as reconstruction, repetition and appropriation.

Tadej Pogacar and PMCA has exhibited widley on a number of international manifestations and events including the Venice Biennale (2001), theTirana Biennale (2005), the International Biennale of Contemporary Art Prague (2005), the São Paulo Art Biennial (2006), the International Istanbul Biennial (2007), and the Biennial of the Canary Islands (forthcoming in 2009).

Tadej Pogacar and PMCA has intervened in a number of museum collections and museum: collection of Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; Tretjak's African Collection at Gallery of Fine Arts, Slovenj Gradec; the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Naturmeuseum, Rotterdam; Mucsarnok, Budapest; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin.

Tadej Pogacar and PMCA prepared "Kings of the Street" (1995), one of the first collaborative street actions with Ljubljana's homeless community and in 2001in Venice declared an on-going collaborative transdisciplinary project CODE:RED (1999/2000-2010).

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporaray Art has published six thematic editions of the review "Journal for Anthropology and New Parasitism", two editions of the thematic newspaper "Sex Worker" and the book "The Best is Yet to Come" (2007).

Tadej Pogacar and PMCA are curently showing also at "Coalesce:Happenstance", SMART project Space, Amsterdam and "Monsters", Motorenhalle, Dresden.
Project was realised with generous support of Ministry of Culture of Slovenia and Municipality of Ljubljana.

Image: Tadej Pogačar & PMCA, Untitled, C-print 40 x 60 cm 2005-2008

EVENTS
Thursday, 22 January at 7 p.m.
Video screenings and conversation
Tadej Pogacar in discussion with Igor Spanjol, media art curator from Moderna galerija Ljubljana / Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Slovenia.

OPENING & CELEBRATION
Friday, 9 January 2009 at 8 p.m.
"This is not America – 15 Years of P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art"

Institute P74 Center and Gallery
Prusnikova 74, 1210 Ljubljana Slovenia
T: +386 (0)1 5161581 p74info@volja.net
http://www.zavod-parasite.si
Opening hours: 4 p.m. - 8 p.m Tuesday – Friday

Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.
Hruševska 66, 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia
tel: +386-1-5425685 e-mail: tpogacar@yahoo.com
http://www.parasite-pogacar.si

stampa

permanent link