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19/12/2006

Irwin

Akbank Art Center, Istanbul

Birds of a feather

curated by Ali Akay

The Irwin collective are one of the most important representatives of the Post-Conceptual Art movement in former Yugoslavia. In the early 1980s the famous industrial-punk group Laibach (the German name for Ljubljana: a reference to the Nazi occupation of that city in the second world war) together with other autonomous Slovenian avant-garde groups set up NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst: New Slovenian Art), a political art collective that undertook some of the most radical and critical forms of experimental art in socialist-period Yugoslavia.

Deploying a deliberately provocative mixture of Slovenian nationalist icons, Nazi symbolisms, disco-punk stylistics, Communist totalitarian kitsch, and other extreme ideological symbols, Irwin sought to free itself of totalitarianism effectively by being more totalitarian than the totalitarians. During this period, philosophers such as Slavoj Zizek and Rastko Mocnik were the theoreticians who most supported the NSK and Irwin aesthetic ideology.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Irwin group’s primary target was shorn of its significance. Somewhat later therefore in 1991, Irwin redefined itself as a state: specifically the “NSK State in Time"-a micronation with its own embassies and passports. This was a tactical move that was intended rather to add a more critical and performative character to the process of post-socialist renationalization. Like the Russian graphic artists team of Komar and Melamd’s “Sots Art" project during the days of the Soviet Union, which set “Socialist Realism" on its head, Irwin inverted the realities of socialist-Yugoslavia, introducing the mechanisms of criticism into its work.

“Lux tenebris, lux mundi et lux veritatis" (“The light of shadows, the light of the world, the light of truth") is a synthesis of this group’s work. According to Marina Grzinic, it functions as an “art machine" that relies heavily on the Deleuzian concepts of which it makes use. Operating with such concepts as “desired" and “capitalist" machines, the realism of the IRWIN/NSK micronation resembles the island in Kostunica’s film Underground. The violence and savagery of a divided and fragmented Yugoslavian world shows us the objective in setting up an imaginary country. The Srebrenica Massacre was an important contributor to the establishment of this NSK micronation, which is itself a reaction to the indifference that the “civilized" capitalist West showed towards these tragic events. Striving to combine aesthetics and the history of art, Irwin employs surprise effectively in its work, which is formulated by installing pictorial iconography into the history of Yugoslavian and world art and which is informed by a preference of deconstructionist methods rather than copying and identification. From representational models, the group’s artists produce a history of memory that reveals itself in the process of re-creation. The reconstruction of “auras" relies on the images made possible by modern technology, which works in tandem with history. New combinations of a variety of styles and collages reveal for us the Irwin aesthetic style.

For the last five years, Irwin has been working on producing a map and history of contemporary art in all Eastern European and former Socialist countries through its “East Art Map" project, in which an attempt is being made to formulate a history of that art that is an alternative to the authoritarian art history of the West. Akbank Sanat is presenting viewers in ‹stanbul yet another Irwin exhibition in the wake of two previous appearances at the ‹stanbul biennials of 1997 and 2005. This is the first time this group of artists will be mounting a personal exhibition of their work in the Istanbul cosmopolis. The exhibition will consist of three different projects; East Art Map, Like to Like, Corpse of Art.

Opening reception: Wednesday, 20 December 2006 at 19.30

Akbank Sanat
Istiklal Caddesi - Istanbul

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