Jasmina Cibic
Situation Anophthalmus hitleri
A series of talks and a roundtable debate curated
by the artist for the finissage of the exhibition.
Saturday, December 1, 2012 ,11am
Maribor Art Gallery
Slavia No 11, Ulica Vita Kraigherja 3
Maribor, Slovenia
www.galerijaskuc.si
www.jasminacibic.org
A conversation about the formation of national iconographies and their framing with
Michelle Deignan (artist and filmmaker, London), Dr. Nika Grabar (Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana), Tevž Logar (artistic director, Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana), Suzana Milevska (curator and visual culture theorist, Skopje), Alexei Monroe (cultural theorist, London), Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (co-director, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris), Professor Jane Rendell (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London) and others.
Jasmina Cibic’s exhibition is on view until 1 December 2012 in Salon 2012, Trg Leona Štuklja 2, Maribor, Slovenia. Co-produced by European Capital of Culture Maribor 2012 and Galerija Škuc Ljubljana.
Jasmina Cibic’s projects are conceived as a type of gesamtkunstwerk, embracing variations of delegated performance and delegated object-making, combining works by specialist practitioners such as architects and scientists, as well as factories and craftsmen, chosen for their historical and contextual relevance.
In her new project, the artist investigates two key moments within the construction and survival of national icons and their myths, namely their invention and the chosen architectonic context that channels their perception towards the spectator/audience.
The project begins with the story of the discovery of one of Slovenia’s endemic species, Anophthalmus hitleri, a cave beetle which has recently entered the endangered species list solely because of its name. Discovered in 1933 and named by an admirer of Hitler in 1937, this blind beetle marks an un-erasable ideological moment as, according to the rules of Linnaean taxonomy, animal and plant names cannot be changed.
Cibic has worked with over forty international entomologists and scientific illustrators, including associates of the Natural Museum in London, the US Department of Agriculture, the Zoological Museum at Tel Aviv University and others, who produced illustrations of the hitleri beetle, basing their work solely on their experience and interpretation of the Latin name.
The exhibition takes place in an underground gallery where actual hitleri beetles are presented within a series of models of trade fair pavilions that were designed by Vinko Glanz, the chief protocol architect of post-war Yugoslavia in 1939, but never built. The models/vitrines are realised in crystal from the mould archives of the Slovene company Rogaška, who has been a major producer of national souvenirs and protocol gifts for decades.
The installation also presents a short film, which Cibic has filmed in Vila Bled, Tito’s residence at lake Bled, which was the first building converted by the architect Glanz and which led him to win his role as the chief protocol architect of the country. The script is based on recently found transcripts from the 1953 parliamentary discussion between politicians and art historians who, together with the architect of the building, debate which artists should be commissioned to carry out the mosaics, frescoes and sculptures on the portal of the building, that were to represent the nation.
The installation presents the unresolved dialogue between art and architecture and questions their mutual implications within the formation of national iconography that is echoed in our contemporary condition.
Jasmina Cibic’s (b. 1979, Ljubljana) recent projects and exhibitions include Borderline, Joanneums Museum Graz; Bus-Tops, a London 2012 Cultural Olympiad project; The Object of the Spectacle, Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana; U3 – 6TH Triennial of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana; The Secret of the Ninth Planet, California College of the Arts, San Francisco; Cibic received the Trend Award for outstanding achievements in visual art in Slovenia in 2012.
A screening event:
Thursday November 29, 4pm: For Our Public, a screening of artists’ film and video work curated by Michelle Deignan, including works by Jasmina Cibic (SLO/UK), Redmond Entwhistle (US/UK), Patricia Esquivias (ES/US), Elizabeth Price (UK), and Rachel Reupke (UK), The Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana. Please contact galerija.skuc [at] guest.arnes.si to reserve a place.
