Editorial
A Passage of the Gaze
Translated by Maja Lovrenov.
In this issue, we wanted to identify the phenomena, new occurrences, and characteristics of the last seven years in the Slovene performing arts space. The main focus was devoted to art production, since we were interested in what it generated, what it says about the experience of contemporary times, and how it relates to the zeitgeist. Despite the unenviable production conditions predominating in the sphere of art (which this issue could, once again, not avoid), it is obvious that the local context has created quite a few effective, noticeable, and penetrating art works. Through art form, many of artists reflect on society, or – better yet – on the conflict between the art sphere and the political and economic field; this conflict can be read, more broadly, as the complex problem of an individual who is persistently searching for meeting and communication points in the contemporary world's decomposing network of relations and value systems. In order to illustrate the situation, this issue thus sheds light on a few concrete examples of art works (although it does not cover the whole field by any means) and, at the same time, also focuses on three key elements: the status of the performers, discussion with representatives from the upcoming generation of contemporary dance artists, and the inevitable debate on the eternally "unrealized" moment of Slovene art production, this un-adapted – and consequently, at several levels, dysfunctional – system of art production. Despite the fact that we want to create a bright outlook for the future, we cannot shut our eyes and be unaware of the fact that art production in Slovenia is also a political problem; we have quality art production that depends on a dysfunctional institutional system. The reasons for such a state are not simply because of a non-existent cultural policy (the existing policies did reform the system, but failed to be the required systemic solutions that would be in touch with the new changed reality), they are also the consequence of the work of a transition generation that, in the middle of the 1990s, systematically neglected the key moments for the establishment or institutionalization of art production based on cosmopolitan, urban principles in touch with the spinning of the contemporary world. Today, the equal establishment of certain art disciplines, ways of thought, and production has still not been completely realized. In the Slovene space, the inadequacy and unpreparedness devoted to understanding those contemporary art expressions that are not entirely equally legitimate and lack institutional framework, acknowledgement, or adequate working conditions is ever more evident. Since, by its very nature, art is not a sphere representing a field of power in society (although it is still subject to and controlled by ideology and politics) but, rather, depends on considered and conscious decisions of those who hold the reigns of power, there arises the question: when will (any) government allow the establishment of an open society of different views that are able to coexist, without feeling, at the same time, endangered by the reflection of reality that art always manifests?
Karla Železnik and Katja Praznik
Translated by Maja Lovrenov.
In this issue, we wanted to identify the phenomena, new occurrences, and characteristics of the last seven years in the Slovene performing arts space. The main focus was devoted to art production, since we were interested in what it generated, what it says about the experience of contemporary times, and how it relates to the zeitgeist. Despite the unenviable production conditions predominating in the sphere of art (which this issue could, once again, not avoid), it is obvious that the local context has created quite a few effective, noticeable, and penetrating art works. Through art form, many of artists reflect on society, or – better yet – on the conflict between the art sphere and the political and economic field; this conflict can be read, more broadly, as the complex problem of an individual who is persistently searching for meeting and communication points in the contemporary world's decomposing network of relations and value systems. In order to illustrate the situation, this issue thus sheds light on a few concrete examples of art works (although it does not cover the whole field by any means) and, at the same time, also focuses on three key elements: the status of the performers, discussion with representatives from the upcoming generation of contemporary dance artists, and the inevitable debate on the eternally "unrealized" moment of Slovene art production, this un-adapted – and consequently, at several levels, dysfunctional – system of art production. Despite the fact that we want to create a bright outlook for the future, we cannot shut our eyes and be unaware of the fact that art production in Slovenia is also a political problem; we have quality art production that depends on a dysfunctional institutional system. The reasons for such a state are not simply because of a non-existent cultural policy (the existing policies did reform the system, but failed to be the required systemic solutions that would be in touch with the new changed reality), they are also the consequence of the work of a transition generation that, in the middle of the 1990s, systematically neglected the key moments for the establishment or institutionalization of art production based on cosmopolitan, urban principles in touch with the spinning of the contemporary world. Today, the equal establishment of certain art disciplines, ways of thought, and production has still not been completely realized. In the Slovene space, the inadequacy and unpreparedness devoted to understanding those contemporary art expressions that are not entirely equally legitimate and lack institutional framework, acknowledgement, or adequate working conditions is ever more evident. Since, by its very nature, art is not a sphere representing a field of power in society (although it is still subject to and controlled by ideology and politics) but, rather, depends on considered and conscious decisions of those who hold the reigns of power, there arises the question: when will (any) government allow the establishment of an open society of different views that are able to coexist, without feeling, at the same time, endangered by the reflection of reality that art always manifests?
Karla Železnik and Katja Praznik
Maska, Institute for Publishing, Production and Education
Metelkova 6
SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Europe
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