Was ist Kunst, IRWIN?

The exhibition focuses on the Slovenian artist collective IRWIN (Dušan Mandič, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek, Borut Vogelnik), which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2023. In addition, IRWIN was also one of the founders of the meta-collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) in 1984—together with the music group Laibach, the theater Sester Scipion Nasice and the design department Novi kolektivizem.

Since 1983 IRWIN has been dealing with the history of art in Eastern Europe, specifically with the ambivalent legacy of the historical avant-garde and its totalitarian successors, that is, with the dialectic of avant-garde and totalitarianism. Since the 1990s, the group has concentrated on critically questioning the art history of “Western Modernism”. It contrasts this with the “retroavantgarde” - an “eastern modernism”. In the 2000s, the NSK State in Time - founded in 1992 parallel to Slovenia’s independence - becomes relevant: a state without territory and state nation, but which issues passports as “confirmation of temporal space”. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12–5pm, you can apply for them in the installation Transnacionala (charge: 32 EUR). On the level 3 of the Dortmunder U, posters advertise travel to this fictional state.

The exhibition consists of two large chapters. The first exhibition chapter is concerned with black humour which is constantly present in the works of IRWIN. The second chapter deals with questions of the state—and how IRWIN, with that, comments on current topics such as migration.

In the vertical space on level U4, IRWIN’s new production Was ist Kunst, Bernd und Hilla Becher? is presented in the window of the Museum Ostwall. The new production was created using the nine-part series Fördertürme (1973–1989) by Bernd and Hilla Becher (from the MO collection). 

A 288-page HMKV exhibition magazine will be published in October. In addition to new essays by Inke Arns and Thibaut de Ruyter and a comprehensive photographic documentation of the exhibition, this publication also contains a so-called “source book”, which for the first time systematically breaks down the image sources of IRWIN‘s works and classifies them in (art) historical terms.

Curated by Inke Arns and Thibaut de Ruyter.