Past events

Starting at 11.00 at MGLC; the second meeting point for visitors to join the guided tour is at 12.30, at the National Gallery of Slovenia.

The marathon guided tours are accompanied by impro intervals in collaboration with Impro liga.

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Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Programme:

18.00–21.00: Children’s Studio, workshops for children, Švicarija

21.00–22.00: Guided tour of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, the tour starts at MGLC, led by Nevenka Šivavec, Director of MGLC

22.00–22.30: Stand-up performance, Jan Kreuzer, Švicarija

Welcome!
Admission free.

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Illustration: Janja Kosi

Opening of the exhibition on Summer Museum Night, 15 June, 20.00, DLUL Gallery

Artists:
Nevenka Arbanas (Croatia),
Admir Ganić (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia),
Vladimir Goreski (Macedonia),
Sonja Vulpes (Slovenia),
Leon Zuodar (Slovenia),
Renata Papišta (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The selected artists from the wider region are represented with printmaking in a broad range of generations and expressions – from spatial interventions, to classical fine art graphic prints made using intaglio printmaking. Coordinators and project leaders: Zora Stančič and Mojca Zlokarnik.

The exhibition is an accompanying event of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts.

DLUL Gallery, Breg 22
Tuesday–Friday: 10.00–18.00; Monday, Saturday, Sunday: 10.00–14.00; on view till 7 July; admission free

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Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

This year’s prize recipient exhibition presents Alejandro Paz, the recipient of the Grand Prize of the 32nd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. On this occasion, the Guatemalan artist and architect is entering into a dialogue with the philosophy of Epicurus and the private garden of Plečnik, where his performative intervention entitled The Garden of Epicurus has come alive. In 306 BC, Epicurus founded a school in Athens, called The Garden, because it was located in one of the city’s gardens. According to testimony, an inscription above the front door read, among other things, that pleasure was the greatest good therein. Epicurus taught that a happy life must be based on the achievement of pleasure, both sensual and intellectual, which can be achieved with balance and moderation. He believed that spiritual pleasures were more important than physical ones, even though he did not accept duality as the opposite of both dynamics, but evaluated them through an interplay of balance in which they complement each other. The Epicurean garden of learning was, contrary to traditional Greek morality, open to everyone (including women and slaves), and reflected the importance of community and friendship. Plečnik’s garden was also a space of coexistence and the search for pleasure of various people, who believed that the garden is a venue where nature creates a spontaneous balance between the physical and ethical.

Alejandro Paz chose Jože Plečnik’s house and garden for the realisation of the project in order to express his admiration for his architectural heritage and accentuate the importance that he attributes to nature in his own work. According to the artist, Plečnik becomes a silent protagonist in this project, creating an ideal venue of temporary coexistence with the help of his house, studio and garden. In the process of thinking about his engagement with Plečnik’s home, Paz let go of the idea of an architectural intervention and decided to go for a performative one, in which the orchestra plays without a conductor, while the musicians are scattered throughout the garden and house.

Visitors can acquaint themselves with Paz’s art through a selection of his earlier video works, in which the artist becomes a resigned commentator on the fate of certain individuals from Guatemala in the grip of corruption, crime, exhaustion and hopelessness.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Musicians:

Maruša Alegro, Annemarie Glavič, Tobija Hrastnik, Aljaž Jazbinšek, Peter Kaizer, Žan Kopše, Kim Kozlevčar, Katarina Kralj, Gašper Livk, Ana Mezgec, Lucija Mikuž, Ana Mir, Martin Pinter, Anuša Plesničar, Ana Sešek, Kaja Sešek, Mirjam Šolar, Stefanija Udicui, Jerneja Vidmar, Kristjan Zupan, Neža Zupanc.

Saturday breakfast

Ajdin Bašić in conversation with Branko Đurić – Đuro and presentation of Top lista nadrealista.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Symposium

Moderated by Slavs and Tatars

16.00–17.45
Vid Simoniti: Equality and Cynicism: Satire in Martin Krpan, Top lista nadrealista and Borat
Mohammad Salemy: Between Three Revolutions: Notes on the History of Iranian Political Satire (1900–1980) in the Age of Social Media
Arthur Fournier with Raphael Koenig: No More Fuchs Left to Give

18.00–19.30
Emily Apter: Micropolitics of the Meme.
How are we to understand and implement the political vocabulary of a genre of communication native to the 21st century?
Keynote: Metahaven (Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden): Sleep Walks The Street

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Dozie Kanu, Bench on 84’s, 2017; poured concrete, steel, rims; 52.07×45.72×254 cm.
Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design.

The Biennial exhibition venues will be open from 16.00 to 18.00 on 7 June.

MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts, MGLC – Švicarija, National Gallery of Slovenia, National and University Library (NUK), Equrna Gallery, ZVKDS Gallery, ISIS Gallery, DUM Project
Space, DobraVaga, Plečnik House

Opening of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts with the Slon in Sadež duo.

Programme:

18.00
The Biennial will be opened by
Nevenka Šivavec, Director of MGLC

Zoran Poznič, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

Tjaša Ficko, Deputy Mayor of Ljubljana.

Presentation of the Grand Prize of the 33rd Biennial of Graphic Arts Ljubljana.

19.00
Concert
Being Out of Tune – Favourite Songs of my Neighbours, Abusers and Despots, 2019
Augustin Maurs
Also performing: Igor Feketija, Leon Firšt and Peter Firšt.

Programme:

Blutrote Rosen (Germany, 1924)
Suliko (Georgia/Soviet Union)
Awaara Hoon (India, 1951)
Is That All There Is? (USA, 1969)
Mei Hua (Taiwan, 1976)
Meglio ‘na Canzone (Italy, 2009)
Blueberry Hill (Russia, 2010)
Toita Sei? (Zimbabwe, 2011)
Öňe, diňe öňe, jan Watanym Türkmenistan! (Turkmenistan, 2015)
Ikaw (The Philippines, 2017)
Brother Louie (North Korea, 2012)

20.00
Stand-up comedy: Boštjan Gorenc aka Pižama (Slovene), Marina Orsag (Croatian), Dragoș Cristian (English); hosted by Anja Wutej (Slovene/English)

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Directed by Inside Job (Ula Lucińska, Michał Knychaus) with Francesca Romana Audretsch

SKINDAY guides you through the surface structure of the National Gallery of Slovenia.

Inside Job introduces binoculars to transform the existing exhibition into an abstract and immersive experience. By zooming in and out and observing in an unusual way, the realm of physical space shifts into a fluctuating, virtual territory. Similar to skin we identify the functions of insulation, regulation, synthesis, protection and sensation. Observing artworks and exhibition spaces as if they were living environments or habitats, we learn about their peculiar migrations. Can we imagine a biennial happening in a sun-baked desert or deep under the earth? Can art and its production be freed from an anthropocentric perspective and taken out of the framework of architecture that persuasively governs our ways of reading? Using a speculative methodology, we seek to support the value of the imaginary in relation to normative systems of rational thinking and seeing. By combining the session with exercises in active observation and research-based discussions, we examine skin as one of the most important organs, which like a lens draws together the states of being of all our organs.

 Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Directed by Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov with Teresa Häußler

BRAINDAY investigates the relationship between human nature and science on the basis of zoological and natural history collections.

Basing his session on a selective guided tour of the Slovenian Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana, Fedotov-Fedorov will uncover and discuss the museum’s collections and methodologies. Selecting specific artefacts, he will ask why certain animals are regarded as more important than others. Following his tour, participants will reconvene in the Metabolic Museum-University chairs to play a special game “Which Animal in Your Next Life?”. Based on individual answers, groups will be formed. Against the backdrop of current existential conditions, each group of human-animals shall debate their chances of survival. The session will conclude with a presentation by Fedotov-Fedorov of his artistic practice and work with archives and collections in the Moscow Museum of Zoology.

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Crossroads / Meeting Point

In the summer, Ljubljana turns into a crossroads and a meeting point for many travellers and tourists. Various musical influences from all over the world will be crossing and meeting through the performances of musicians from six countries in Tivoli Park, in front of MGLC, on Tuesday nights. Admission free!

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Klarisa Jovanović and Igor Bezget first collaborated in 1999 during the recording of the STEKLENI ČAS album by Veno Dolenc: she was the singer, and he was a guest musician. A year later, they joined forces again: she was the singer and author of the HASRET project, he was a member of the accompanying Trio Bahur that also included Vasko Atanasovski and Nino Mureškič at the time. The album under the same title was extremely well received by critics and audiences alike. Concerts followed at home and abroad, and then a break that lasted for some years. No, this was not a musical break. They just ventured on their own paths and worked with different musicians. Since 2011, they have been meeting again on the stage more and more: in Klarisa’s original projects MEDINTERAN and AMANDOLAT, and from autumn 2013, also as a duo. She sings in the way that only she knows how to, effortlessly strolling through many different languages, rhythms and melodies, whereas he takes to the strings as only he knows how to, effortlessly strolling through different musical styles, ranging from jazz and modern improvisation, to Indian classical music. Tonight, they will travel across the Mediterranean, the Balkans and the fringes of Slovenia through folk song and their own original compositions. There will be at least as many colours, scents and flavours as the winds can bring, diligently inscribed in the wind rose, yet never tamed.

Co-production: Pinelina dnevna soba
Photo: Klarisa Jovanović & Igor Bezget. Archive of the artist.

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A public guided tour of the Biennial will be held before the concert, starting at 18.30 at MGLC, in Slovene and English.

Both venues are open till 20.00 on Tuesdays.

Directed by Alexander Schindler, Felipe Meres, and Ariana Dongus with Lizzy Ellbrück

EYEDAY leads you down several paths of visual perception.

Guided by Alexander Schindler, we begin with the concrete object and its two-dimensional visual representation. Then we try to sensitize ourselves to the unconscious processes of kinaesthetic perception. We find out that with acts of cognition, every object as well as its visual representation is in constant motion. It is never still but always spatial and temporal. During interactive moments, we dedicate ourselves to so-called model-based images. They are the result of intensive rendering processes of highly detailed metric measurements of spatial situations. Their appearance on our screens suggests the possibility for manifold observations of nearly endless scale and perspective. Schindler asks: are we able to abandon the directionality of the linear perspective we have become so accustomed to? Can we apprehend the extended process of “Polyscopy”, multiplying perspectives on an object in space and recognizing it as a kinetically constructed phenomenon? For Schindler’s session we follow the path of visual perception by means of an audio guide. Participants are asked to bring their smartphones with mobile internet connection to EYEDAY.

In the second session of EYEDAY, Felipe Meres focuses on the roles that 3D scanning and hyper-realistic imaging technologies play in the documentation of ethnographic collections in museums across Europe and the U. S. While anthropologists and curators highlight the benefits that could come from the unprecedented level of access to the objects that these technologies provide, the question of what it means to submit ethnographic and ritual objects to such secular technologies remains underexplored. The process of 3D scanning ethnographic artifacts inextricably ties the objects to a network that includes agents not often associated with museums, such as action games with intensive graphics renderings, blockbuster films with complex CGI effects as well as tech companies that develop the graphics cards, 3D rendering software, algorithms and image-capture technologies used in the process. What are the effects of forcefully subsuming ethnographic artifacts in such hyper-realistic network of CGI and in the larger project that aims to produce a level of photorealism never achieved before, effectively rendering the distinction between simulation and reality unattainable to the human eye?

In the final session, Ariana Dongus discusses the coded gazes of camera sensors from city surveillance to smartphones and how these billions of images of the world have become precious raw material in an age of algorithms and artificial intelligence. She will critically investigate the evolution of techniques for identification and control, tracing the emergence of new norms that connects the historical emergence of biometric fingerprinting in the colonial and industrial age to today’s War on Terror. She asks, how can we form a collective political strategy to resist the objectification of people and their rendition into suspicious subjects, de-humanized and stripped of self-agency, history, and intelligence? The lecture performance invites participants to enter a multipolar, visual landscape of object traces, biometric apparatuses, texts and archival images to take a closer look at the ‘genealogy of obsession’ to measure differences.

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Directed by Jon Richter with Christina Scheib

TONGUEDAY explores the different dimensions of this bizarre human and animal organ.

With over 10,000 taste buds, the tongue is a fantastic tool. It is also the subject of colloquialisms such as “hold your tongue!” or “tongue in cheek”. In various ways, the tongue produces difference and sometimes appears to have a life of its own – a life that has the ability to question and express authority. To tear out the tongue is the most radical means of power against freedom of speech. Basing his lecture on philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s distinction between humour and irony as methods for subverting the rule of law, Richter conducts a session of talks and exercises that aim to loosen our tongues, so they can play their part in the metabolic concert of the organs.

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Directed by Neža Knez and Philipp Staab with Diane Hillebrand

LUNGDAY focuses on gesture as an exploratory act that lies at the intersection of bodily movement, rule-based actions and signification.

Philipp Staab will give an introductory talk on French concepts of mathematics and associate this philosophy with examples from European and American artistic practice from the 20th century. This juxtaposition aims to reveal certain productive encounters that have taken place between notions of ‘discipline’, the ‘body’ and ‘formalism’. Examples ranging from educational work on geometry to self-engineered techniques of asceticism propose an understanding of mathematics as an embodied, experimental activity. To conclude he presents a positive reading of ‘discipline’ as a tool for self-regulation and transformation.

Neža Knez demonstrates how action is a question of understanding. What is a, what is b, she asks? What is a word, what is a sentence, what is speech? What is the body and how do we think through the body? The voice both produces speech and punctures speech at the same time. The less we hear, the more we want to hear. Through verbal ‘non-sense’, Knez makes the speaker, who is also the listener, think beyond a language spoken and heard. Visitors are invited to sit on chairs and read a language which they do not know. In parallel, listeners will hear a language they do not recognise. With this performance, Knez investigates the endurance of participation and the relation of intangibility to different forms and illusions. How long is one willing to remain polite while receiving misunderstandings as information?

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Children’s Studio at Švicarija:
Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions. Free of charge, bookings for organised groups to petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Thursday nights featuring contemporary music at Švicarija – MGLC:

Bowrain

Bowrain, the Slovenian composer, pianist and producer, whose original compositions confront elements of electronic and acoustic music based on piano passages, cinematic arrangements and ambient music, will appear in the hall of Švicarija at 9 pm. For this occassion he will be joined by string quartet Vita Kobal (violin), Matija Krečič (violin), Ema Kobal (cello) and Miha Firšt (double bass).

Multi-faceted musician Tine Grgurevič has been active under the name of Bowrain since 2014, when he released his debut studio long-play Far Out, which appeared like a breath of fresh air on the local scene with its hybrid blend of contemporary classical and independent pop. In addition to that, this chameleon-like artist also creates for theatre, film and ambiental art installations, while collaborating on both studio and live performances, regularly attracting numerous collaborators – virtuoso musicians. The live performances of Bowrain’s compositions are always unique, as they add a bit of unpredictability and openness to the basic elements of musical expression. The concert at Švicarija will present an extensive repertoire by this multi-faceted musician, who will shortly be releasing a new record entitled Brotherhood.

The concerts of contemporary music take place in the large hall at Švicarija – MGLC, every Thursday in July. These range from electronic to purely hybrid orientations, based on both resampling and virtuosic original innovations. The cycle features Slovenian musicians and groups that currently belong to the pinnacle of contemporary music of unconventional genre.

Photo: Jorn Baars

Crossroads / Meeting Point

In the summer, Ljubljana turns into a crossroads and a meeting point for many travellers and tourists. Various musical influences from all over the world will be crossing and meeting through the performances of musicians from six countries in Tivoli Park, in front of MGLC, on Tuesday nights. Admission free!

***

Grainne Hunt is a contemporary folk singer and songwriter, raised in Monaghan and living in Kildare. With consistently on-point, captivating vocals and well-honed, insightful songs, Grainne has shared stages with Glen Hansard and Mark Geary and has been compared to vocal icons Tracy Chapman and Nathalie Merchant.

Having just returned from Nashville, with a new record, ‘This Secret’, in her pocket, Grainne is working towards its release in September 2019. Recorded with Thomm Jutz (Nanci Griffith, Maura O’Connell) and featuring the skills of Mark Fain (Ry Cooder) on bass and Lynn Williams (John Hiatt) on drums, it is already gaining attention in the US.

April 2019 has also seen the release of an Irish folk album, Songs from Ireland, recorded with award winning guitarist Brendan Walsh. Recorded in May 2018 in Soundville Studios Luzern, including songs Buachaill on Eirne and Raglan Road.

Coproduction: Pinelina dnevna soba

Photo: Grainne Hunt. Archive of the artist.

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A public guided tour of the Biennial will be held before the concert, starting at 18.30 at MGLC, in Slovene and English.

Both venues are open till 20.00 on Tuesdays.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Thursday nights featuring contemporary music at Švicarija – MGLC:

BeatMyth & N’Toko

BeatMyth, with N’Toko on the vocals, will appear in the hall of Švicarija at 9 pm. Together, they will serve up a live version of the punchy hybrid of diverse electronic genres, from electro punk to breakbeat, with a pinch of vocal lyricism and without mincing any words.

At the concert BeatMyth & N’Toko will also have a premiere of their brand new EP entitled Multiply released for Ljubljana-based Creative Commons label Kamizdat.

More than a decade ago, BeatMyth began to create trendy breakbeat samples and similar electronic subgenres, tirelessly seeking out new challenges in sound and expression that go beyond the established genre formulas. In the past decade, three long-play albums have been released, Your Own Two Heads (2009), Questionable Image (2012) and One Hand Clap (2017), which point to the direction of the development of this musical phenomenon. Even though the last record two years ago presented BeatMyth as a solo project, live shows always feature N’Toko on the second controller and microphone. We are in for a punchy and danceful experience, therefore.

The concerts of contemporary music take place in the large hall at Švicarija – MGLC, every Thursday in July. These range from electronic to purely hybrid orientations, based on both resampling and virtuosic original innovations. The cycle features Slovenian musicians and groups that currently belong to the pinnacle of contemporary music of unconventional genre.

Free entrance!

Cover photo: Nejc Ketiš

Crossroads / Meeting Point

In the summer, Ljubljana turns into a crossroads and a meeting point for many travellers and tourists. Various musical influences from all over the world will be crossing and meeting through the performances of musicians from six countries in Tivoli Park, in front of MGLC, on Tuesday nights. Admission free!

***

Tony Rose is a citizen of the world. Originally from Scotland, he is now based in Prague, Czech Republic. As an accomplished songwriter, many international artists cover his mix of country, blues and folk originals. He has travelled the world playing his songs with a number of bands, most notably Impure Thoughts and Two Dollar Bash from Berlin and the Band of Jakeys from Prague. Tony last album “Medicine Tunes/Roll High & Roll Good” was released in 2018 on Cannery Row Records. A double album, “Medicine Tunes” contained all new material while “Roll High & Roll Good” is a collection of Tony’s songs recorded by other artists.

Coproduction: Pinelina dnevna soba

Photo: Tony Rose. Archive of the artist.

***

A public guided tour of the Biennial will be held before the concert, starting at 18.30 at MGLC, in Slovene and English.

Both venues are open till 20.00 on Tuesdays.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Thursday nights featuring contemporary music at Švicarija – MGLC:

Dubzilla

Dubzilla, which in its original expression reflects an unburdened sound collage of diverse sources and rich hues, winding between experimental dub, ambient electronics and post rock, will appear in the hall of Švicarija at 9 pm.

The Dubzilla collective has been operating in various line-ups since 2006, when the band’s roots reggae and dub broke new ground in the Slovenian arena. In the subsequent years, its original expression and acoustic image, which are essentially still powered by the dub aesthetic, underwent changes and upgrades with the occasional switch-overs in the ensemble, but at the same time freely intertwine today with elements of ambient electronics, post-rock and fusion. Dubzilla prides itself on its extensive discography featuring three long-play albums, Dubzilla (2011), Dub Naturalis (2014) and Post Dub Impressions (2018), which bear witness to the collective’s continued creative development. A music treat that goes beyond genres is therefore being prepared in the hall of Švicarija, which always fluctuates between analogue rock and digitally seasoned sounds.

The concerts of contemporary music take place in the large hall at Švicarija – MGLC, every Thursday in July. These range from electronic to purely hybrid orientations, based on both resampling and virtuosic original innovations. The cycle features Slovenian musicians and groups that currently belong to the pinnacle of contemporary music of unconventional genre.

Free admission.

Short guided tours in Slovene and English

Every Tuesday in July at 18.30: of MGLC and Švicarija (meeting point at MGLC).

Every Tuesday in August at 18.30: of the galleries in the city centre (meeting point at Equrna Gallery).

Guided tour with reflection on the Biennial

Tuesday, 17 September, 17.00

Guided tour starts at MGLC

Admission payable, guided tour free of charge

***

Photo: Lea Kopina

Crossroads / Meeting Point

In the summer, Ljubljana turns into a crossroads and a meeting point for many travellers and tourists. Various musical influences from all over the world will be crossing and meeting through the performances of musicians from six countries in Tivoli Park, in front of MGLC, on Tuesday nights. Admission free!

***

Duo Ponte

Singer Alja Petric and guitarist Damjan Stanišić were joined into a duet through their research into the musical traditions of the diverse cultures around the world. The roots of the Duo Ponte ensemble date back to 2014, when the two musicians put their ideas together and presented their collaboration at their first concerts. Since then, they have been actively performing on numerous Slovenian and foreign stages, creating a unique artistic expression with their distinct original arrangements.

Because of their fondness of poetry, it came as no coincidence that the two musicians stepped together with the poets Magdalena Svetina Terčon, Simona Solin and Albert Halász, who published the Vrvohodci [Tightrope Walkers] poetry collection in 2016. The chequered and colourful musical adaptations of the Duo Ponte ensemble complemented the poetry, imprinting it with their own unique seal. In September 2017, their composition Pomol [The Pier] was selected and presented as part of the Imamo novo glasbo [We’ve Got New Music] public call (MK, RTV Slovenia). The two artists presented the Vrvohodci album (December 2017) for the first time at the CD Club of Cankarjev Dom (March 2018) in collaboration with music guests and actress Milada Kalezić.

Supported by JSKD, the Korenina/Koreni [Root/Roots] CD was also produced in December 2017, which aims to preserve and promote the cultural identity of the members of the Serbian ethnic community in Slovenia. With this project, the musicians connect the Serbian and Slovenian culture through an invisible bridge, presenting audiences with music through a contemporary approach that resonates in a completely new context.

Co-production: Pinelina dnevna soba
Photo: Duo Ponte. Archive of the artist.

***

In case of bad weather the concert will be held at the Caffe Bienale.

***

A public guided tour of the Biennial will be held before the concert, starting at 18.30 at MGLC, in Slovene and English.

Both venues are open till 20.00 on Tuesdays.

Holiday workshops for children between the ages of 6 and 12 are held every day at a different museum in and around Tivoli Park: International Centre of Graphic Arts and Švicarija, National Museum of Slovenia, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Slovenia and National Museum of Contemporary History.

Participation fee: 120 EUR (lunch included)
More info and bookings: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si

We invite you to take part in a one-day workshop:

Business School for Artists: A Creative Approach to Business Planning

The workshop programme encompasses addressing business as a creative practice, being a step ahead of others, taking into account resources, time and costs, analysis of profitability, business plan as a narrative aid, as well as conclusion and questions. The workshop is led by Amy Whitaker, Assistant Professor at New York University. She completed her postgraduate studies in Management at Yale School of Management and postgraduate studies in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art. She is the author of the books Museum Legs (2009) and Art of Thinking (2016).

Programme:

1. Framing Business as a Creative Practice
Protecting space and amplifying reach
The limitations of language
The idea of inventing point B

2. Lighthouse Questions (interactive and hands-on)
Developing the question that drives your work (and this project)
MDQs

3. Resources, Time, and Costs
Resource audit: what you need to do your work (interactive exercise)
Time and money: cross subsidies and what supports your R&D (story and interactive exercise)
Fixed and variable cost
Cost and budget worksheet (interactive exercise)

4. Breakeven Analysis
How to plan the mechanics of paying for your project
How grants and earned income come together

5. Other kinds of costs and advantages
Externalities
Transaction costs
Scale and scope

6. Business plans as storytelling devices
Introduction to business plans
Discussion of an example from the room (interactive)
Templates and collective design challenges (interactive)
Business plan exercise (interactive exercise)

7. Conclusions and questions

Students and graduates of art schools and academies have priority in applying.
Participation fee: 35 EUR
Bookings: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si

Application form

***

Photo: Amy Whitaker, Assistant Professor at New York University, personal archive.

Children’s Studio at Švicarija:
Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions. Free of charge, bookings for organised groups to petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Thursday nights featuring contemporary music at Švicarija – MGLC:

Your Gay Thoughts

The YGT / Your Gay Thoughts electronic music trio and audio-visual collective, which is distinctively non-uniform, since it includes a host of musical genres in its characteristic sound expression, and extremely interdisciplinary, since the audio and visual part make up an equal part of the whole, will appear in the hall of Švicarija at 9 pm.

In musical terms, YGT is a self-proclaimed post-pop band, which includes strong influences of instrumental and downtempo hip-hop, post-punk, jazz, wicked electronics and melancholic pop songs. These components fuse into a coherent audio whole of tuneful and delicate, as well as booming and raw expressions, upgraded with powerful visual imagery. YGT will present their current record Sinking Ship (Youngbloods/King Deluxe, 2019) as well as their other repertoire at the solo concert. We are in for an exceptional experience of sound and image at Švicarija that should certainly not be missed.

The concerts of contemporary music take place in the large hall at Švicarija – MGLC, every Thursday in July. These range from electronic to purely hybrid orientations, based on both resampling and virtuosic original innovations. The cycle features Slovenian musicians and groups that currently belong to the pinnacle of contemporary music of unconventional genre.

Free admission.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Meeting point at Equrna Gallery.

Guided tour with reflection on the Biennial

Tuesday, 17 September, 17.00

Guided tour starts at MGLC.

Admission payable, guided tour free of charge.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Meeting point at Equrna Gallery.

Guided tour with reflection on the Biennial

Tuesday, 17 September, 17.00

Guided tour starts at MGLC.

Admission payable, guided tour free of charge.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Tuesday, 17 September, 17.00

Guided tour starts at MGLC.

Admission payable, guided tour free of charge.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of three or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Meeting point at Equrna Gallery.

Guided tour with reflection on the Biennial

Tuesday, 17 September, 17.00

Guided tour starts at MGLC.

Admission payable, guided tour free of charge.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Directed by Linh Tuong Do with Janina Capelle

HEARTDAY explores intimate experience and asks us to re-think and re-imagine the notion of solidarity.

Linh Tuong Do asks us to consider what solidarity represents in our present-day context? How does it relate to current concepts of ‘power’, ‘alliance’, and ‘difference’? The heart as the organ of cardiac metabolism functions to synthesize growth, repair and regeneration. These three processes take place simultaneously and are central to the group situations and exercises set up by Do Tuong Linh. Activities in the form of speaking, writing, listening, and movement – whatever is most comfortable for participants – highlight modes of difference that may sometimes lead to conflicts, misunderstandings and divisions. Do Tuong Linh will introduce keywords, images, and questions in order to develop a subjective and open conversation about the notion of friendship.

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Directed by Toby Upson with Cécile Kobel

LIVERDAY uses QR codes and instant books to detoxify the labels that classify works of art.

Group exhibitions often feel similar to department stores. Here objects of desire are lined up and labelled with just enough information: brand, size, and price. In the store you are made to believe that taste is yours alone. In the exhibition space this didactic methodology of labelling clashes with the civic responsibility carried by cultural spaces of learning, sharing, and joy. For LIVERDAY Upson stimulates engagement between works and visitors by freeing the exhibit from the standardized label with its regular name of the artist, title of the work, date, medium, size, and provenance. Entering MGLC, visitors are encouraged to create a new exhibit label for each artwork by writing and drawing notes in open books and accessing digital repositories, mediated by QR codes. Following LIVERDAY, the material collected through these metabolic expulsions will be compiled into a digestive archive: gluttonous resources brimming with subjective interpretations. Related and gifted to each artwork, these collections of human expressions will provide polycultural nourishment for research, exhibition design, and future discussion.

Read more about Metabolic Museum-University: https://33.bienale.si/en/metabolic-museum-university/

The Biennial guides and mediators will be with you between 11 am and 2 pm.

Cordially Invited!

“With the rise of populism across the globe, in often reductive and revanchist forms, there has been a vigorous debate of late about who constitutes “the people”. For more than a millennium, satire has been a particularly effective, if contested, genre to explore this and other questions … With varying degrees of invective, satire can tease, taunt or terrorise. But is each joke, as George Orwell maintained, really a tiny revolution?”
(Slavs and Tatars)

***

Honza Zamojski, The Gathering and The Meeting, 2019.
Installation photo: Jaka Babnik. Archive: MGLC.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Given the wealth of knowledge of the contemporary art scene, the Slavs and Tatars art collective has been transformed into the curators of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, inviting artists from the territory east of the Berlin and west of the Chinese wall to take part in exhibitions in Ljubljana. Their joint gesture was the power of satire and humour today, which they expressed through various executions of the medium and highlighted subject matters, all of which were interlinked by a distinctly ironic note. The Biennial was seen as a reflection on the graphic as a way of acting in terms of clarity and multiplicity of meaning.

The guided tour will also include the announcement of the voting that took place during the course of the Biennial:

• The Aspergistan Referendum

The secession referendum at the venues of the Ljubljana Biennial invited visitors to vote on joining the Aspergistan Federation. The original work by Hamja Ahsan, the recipient of the Grand Prize of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, further develops the idea from Ahsan’s book Shy Radicals published in 2017, which is a kind of manifestation of introverted people with radical beliefs; it is an activist-artist platform about a federation that would be a homeland to shy, introverted and autistic people.

• The Audience Award

The Audience Award for Best Artist was first awarded at the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts in 2013. Visitors were also able to vote for their favourite Biennial artist on the MGLC website this year.

The guided tour begins at Equrna Gallery (Gregorčičeva 3) and ends with a social gathering at MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts in Tivoli; in English.

If you book in advance, you receive a ticket to the exhibition and guided tour free of charge. 

Bookings can be made until 24 September by writing to info@mglc-lj.si.

Tickets should be collected before the guided tour on 27 September at the Info Point at Equrna Gallery.

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Alenka Pirman, Blaž Bajič, Rajko Muršič and Miha Horvat will join in the discussion.

At least at first glance, it seems that ethnography and satire could not be more different: the first tends towards respectfully describing ways of life, understanding the world from the point of view of the “native”, striving to produce new knowledge, etc., whereas the second, makes a protest against a person, group, habit or system through more or less frank foolery. Yet both can be defined as ways of describing or portraying reality and – more than that – it could be said that both grab the truth of the phenomena under consideration in the moments of fiction, inherent to the most factual of descriptions. And if an ethnographic turn has occurred in art, then no satirical turn has taken place in ethnography or anthropology as such. The naive question arises – why? Are the reasons epistemological in nature, are ethnography and satire conceptually incompatible? Has anthropology imposed a limitation on itself for ethical reasons? Or is ethnography perhaps not interested in satire, quietly rejecting it because of its implicit political stance? At the same time, another naive question arises – what, if anything, can we learn from satire, and what, if anything, can we do with satire in a world that seems beyond satire because it is already satire itself?

You will be taken around the venues of this year’s Biennial by Museum Information Officer, Gregor Dražil. The meeting point for the guided tour is in front of MGLC at 11.00, and in front of the National Gallery of Slovenia at 12.30.

The tour will be accompanied by impro interventions in collaboration with Impro liga, therefore get ready for one of the more exciting guided tours so far!

P.S.: Please wear appropriate footwear (our hedgehog has also put on his trainers).

***

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

Every Friday during the Biennial, 10.00–12.00, MGLC – Švicarija, Tivoli Park

We carry out relief printing workshops for our youngest group of “hedgehogs” (4–12 years old), tell each other jokes and talk about large-scale exhibitions.

Free of charge.

For groups of four or more children please make an appointment: petra.derganc@mglc-lj.si.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. Archive: MGLC.

The three-day residence of exploring, creating, living and socialising in the heart of Tivoli Park and the 33rd Biennial of Graphic Arts. We accept a maximum of 15 participants between the ages of 16 and 19. In cooperation with Poljane grammar school.
Free of charge.

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Honza Zamojski, Untitled (The Gathering), 2019; drawing (made using carbon copy paper); dry pastels on paper, mounted on MDF; 40×60 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Drei, Cologne.