CUratedCUbe#2
Tadej Pogačar & AB Collection by Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E
The second instance of CUratedCube – presentations dedicated to publications and artists’ books published by national and international Institutions and Publishing Houses around the world, selected by Kunstverein Milano for The Art Book Shop Project – presents the AB Collection by Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.
On view is a selection of publications and fanzines by OHO, Sanja Ivekovic, Mladen Stilinovic, Goran Trbuljak, Balint Szombathy, Dejan Habicht, Tadej Pogačar, Paula Roush, SBD, Temporary Services, Jesper Fabricius, Tadej Vaukman.Contemporaneously Kunstverein Milano presents Nasa zena (Our Woman), a series of magazine covers from a popular Slovenian women’s magazine, by Tadej Pogačar who is also the director of Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. (Museum of Contemporary Art).
October 2018
@ The Art Book Shop Project | Fabbrica del Vapore
The artist and publisher Tadej Pogačar introduces his work and the activity of Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E
to the Milanese public on Thursday 25 October at TABSP.
Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art, is a non-profit institution that works in the area of contemporary art through programmes for production, education, and exchange.
Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. is also leading independent publisher and producer of artist books in Slovenia.
In 2004 Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. conceived a collection of artist books that is focused on innovative contemporary production.
The magazine Nasa zena was published regularly for 72 years and is in fact the oldest periodical of its kind in Slovenia. It was launched in 1945, immediately at the end of World War II, as a “journal for the working woman”. Published by the Main Committee of the Women’s Antifascist Front of Slovenia (a women’s socio-political organization established in 1942), the magazine wished to actively include itself in the currents of societal events and to co-shape the image of the modern Slovenian woman.
The work Nasa zena (Our Woman) contains the magazine's covers from 1960 to 1970 and investigates the representation of women in the media, the dominant ideology of the time, as well as lifestyle and consumerism in Yugoslavia – at a time when the country’s original version of self-management socialism was experiencing its peak of economic prosperity.
Tadej Pogačar is a visual artist, curator and educator, born in 1960 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
He studied art history, ethnology and fine art at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. He is the founder and director of the P. A. R. A. S. I. T. E. Museum of Contemporary Art and menaging director of the P74 Center and Gallery, a leading center for contemporary art in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Examining indeterminacy and transformation within social systems in his art, Pogačar engages in interventionist logic, institutional critique, and critical research on social and political issues as well as participatory and collaborative projects. The “parasitism” of his work is a subtle deconstruction of the horizon of the everyday, and of the ruthless challenges to the systems that are used to establish and maintain the center, domination, and power. Part of his artistic practice involves invading real institutions and working within them; to this end he established a special institution in 1993, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art, to serve as the framework for his activities. In the first manifesto, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum was described as a parallel art institution, a mobile spiritual entity that establishes specific interrelationships among a variety of subjects, societies, institutions, social groups, and symbolic networks. In short, it exists basically in its relationships.
It doesn’t have its own facilities or staff, but rather, it appropriates territories, chooses spaces, and feeds on the juices of (established) institutions. As a “parallel art institution” it serves as a critical model for analyzing systems and the institutions within it. The emphasis is on the fact that it does not create new structures in the system, nor creates an opposition to the system; instead, it critically use and reuse the existing system. The basic strength of the PMCA is (was) its mobility and adaptability – through mimicry, transgression, détournement, etc.
Kunstverein Milano hosts The Library on Unread Books, a project by Heman Chong and Renée Staal!
You are kindly invited to donate your unread book until 30.11.2018.