The grand opening of the Laibach group exhibition, entitled “Ausstellung! Laibach Kunst: a revolution that lasts”, will be held on Tuesday, November 19, in the Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro in Podgorica, at 7 p.m.
“Laibach is a great ocean that drowns in the collective spirit. An experience for all the senses. We can understand Laibach as the absolute, the universal symbol of the new age, and the essential expression of the universal truth of the present time. Through an eclectic combination of seemingly incompatible elements, Laibach creates works of art – universal symbols of the contemporary moment. Sensory experience, symbolism and aesthetics in elements to create layered and ambiguous images, which play with symbols and irony, which creates an effect of alienation in the audience. He questions his own beliefs and perception through symbolic narratives,” wrote curator Natalija Đuranović in the text accompanying the exhibition.
Đuranović points out that the contribution to contemporary art is the current controversy of the comprehensive picture of their work that was reflected on the audience – confirmation and its negation, i.e. substitution, recalling one of the most famous theses at the foundation of Laibach’s philosophy – “All art is subject to political manipulation, except the one that speaks language of the same manipulation”.
“Their aesthetics based on the image and sound of specific visual styles, such as uniforms and monumental paintings, arouse emotions in the viewer, who is in a frozen moment, left to the experience,” she wrote.
The group Laibach was founded in 1980 in Trbovlje, within the framework of the Slovenian or, at that time, wider Yugoslav punk and alternative art movement of the 80s. “The provocative stance taken by the members from their beginnings was understood as a response to the totalitarianism of the former SFRY. The Laibach group does not challenge the system with parody or direct criticism; their specific method of provocation is usually defined as over-identification. Or, as they say themselves: ‘Art and totalitarianism is not excluded. Totalitarian regimes abolish the illusion of revolutionary individual artistic freedom,” the Museum’s announcement reads.
Laibach points out that Laibach Kunst is a principle of conscious renunciation of personal taste, judgment, conviction: “It is free depersonalization, voluntary assumption of the role of ideology, unmasking and recapitulation of regime postmodernism.”
“Politics is the highest form of popular culture, and we who create contemporary popular culture consider ourselves politicians.” However, Laibach points out that all art is subject to political manipulation, except for that which speaks the language of that same manipulation: “To speak in political terms means to discover and acknowledge the omnipresence politics.”
Their program, described in the document Laibach: 10 points of the convention (1982), envisages, among other things, a way of working on the model of industrial production and totalitarian regimes, where the voice of the organization is more important than the voice of the individual. “Thus, the attribution of individual authors was never emphasized even in the works of art, they always appeared formally only under the title Laibach or Laibach Kunst,” the announcement reads.
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Source: www.vijesti.me
