Interruption: The 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana
14 September–24 November 2013
Curator: Deborah Cullen
Printerly processes touch many types of present-day art. Select, traditional media have evolved and adapted to maintain their relevance, while digital processes, after a long fermentation, have finally taken legitimate hold as artistic tools in their own right. Interruption surveys the extension of traditional as well as new approaches to printmaking in response to our 21st-century communications.
The works included in the Biennial echo and comment on the conditions of the world in which we live: how we receive our information, how we interact—or attempt to—with each other, how we (mis)perceive our world. Clamouring, unfiltered data bombards us. Masquerading commercial and political agendas vie for our attention alongside personal thoughts and images that are more than we can ever possibly absorb. The hyperactivity of text and image begs for our attention. While some artists respond by returning to basic, even primal, forms of image reproduction (fire, shadows, tattoos, gunshots), others embrace the randomness of social media picture boards, the ghostliness of heat-sensitive live-feed video, endless streams of leaked governmental documents, or the brief haikus of the Twittersphere.
Interruption considers both the fresh application of traditional means by leading-edge artists and the innovative incorporation of new printerly technologies in fine-art investigations. Both approaches contemplate our contemporary transmissions as the basis of their works. Interruption explores the graphic as both form and content, in an invigorated polygraphic terrain that links the work of diverse contemporary artists from around the world.
Participating Artists:
Allora & Calzadilla, Burak Arıkan, Dennis Ashbaugh & William Ford Gibson, Tammam Azzam, Xu Bing, Luis Camnitzer, caraballo-farman, Alex Cerveny, Mario Čaušić, Vuk Ćosić, Milos Djordjevic, Tomás Espina, Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze & Gianluigi Scarpa, Mihael Giba, Ana Golici, María Elena González, Meta Grgurevič and Urša Vidic, Dragan IIic, Sanela Jahić, Charles Juhász-Alvarado, Thomas Kilpper, André Komatsu, Gorazd Krnc, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Nicola López, Ivan Marušić Klif, Yucef Merhi, Ottjörg A.C., Renata Papišta, Adam Pendleton, Agnieszka Polska, Zoran Poposki, Marjetica Potrč, Gerhard Richter, Venelin Shurelov, Dario Šolman, Nika Špan, Teo Spiller, Waltraut Tänzler, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Vargas-Suarez Universal and Tomas Vu-Daniel.
The following exhibitions are also part of the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts:
Exhibition of the history of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts:
The Biennial of Graphic Arts – Serving You Since 1955
The exhibition features archival television footage, personal testimonies and memoirs, letters and other documents that reveal the Biennial’s journey through nearly six decades, with a focus on selected aspects from past exhibitions. Curated by Petja Grafenauer.
Exhibition of the Grand Prize Winner of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts:
Regina José Galindo: The Anatomy Lesson
The Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo works in the field of performance, often responding in her art to current socio-political situations, as we saw presented at the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts. This year’s retrospective exhibition takes us on a journey through the poetics of the artist’s oeuvre. Curated by Yasmín Martín Vodopivec.
Exhibition of the Honorable Mention of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts:
Miklós Erdély: The Original and the Copy + Indigo Drawings
Miklós Erdély (1928–1986)—artist, architect, writer, poet, and filmmaker—was a major figure in the neo-avant-garde and conceptual art of Hungary. The exhibition of Erdély’s photographic works, indigo works and drawings has been organised with the co-operation of the Miklós Erdély Foundation (EMA). Curated by Annamária Szőke.
Photo: André Komatsu, Construção de Valores (Constructing Value), 2012. Installation with A4 photocopies and industrial fans, variable dimensions. Installation view, Future Generation Art Prize, 2012, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev. Courtesy the artist.