NSK State Art: New York The Impossible Return Feb 9–Mar 25, 2017 Marina Abramović / Ulay Yael Bartana Danica Dakić Pablo Helguera Ištvan Išt Huzjan Alban Muja Mladen Stilinović Nebojša Šerić-Shoba NSK State Art: New York The James Gallery The Impossible Return The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue at 35th Street centerforthehumanities.org/james-gallery Hours: Tue–Thu, 12–7pm Fri–Sat, 12–6pm Feb 9–Mar 25, 2017 Exhibitions & Programs 2 NSK State Art: New York Now is the time for radical friendship the next level, was the formation of NSK State in Time in 1992, which also responded Crisis tests institutions and mechanisms that to the political shifts and radical changes in have the potential to combat disaster, and it Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe after the fall also sparks intense personal and social of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The decision to exchange. Even though rhetoric based on create a state with no specific place being anger, fear, and hatred can mobilize, the fully disclosed was one of the main “agendas” volume can also be turned up on disruptions of the NSK movement: to move beyond the of the syntax and grammar of the reigning issues and scope of borders and the “nation- discourse, thus turning this language against al.” Soon after, the NSK State in Time started itself. Such an action of Deleuzian minor to open embassies and consulates to issue language is the territory of the institution of passports in a number of countries and offer the State in Time. One of the State’s citizens rights of participation. NSK State foundational texts, Viktor Misiano’s The in Time now is the virtual home of over 15,000 Institutionalization of Friendship (1998), citizens worldwide, many of them artists. proposes friendship as the most direct type Interviews were made by Tevž Logar with of social communication, not established many of the artist-citizens, which form the through formalized procedures, but through starting point for this exhibition. the rhythm discovered by the participants when they listen to each other. This is a The space of the exhibition is introduced with touchstone for the exhibition “NSK State in the Retrogarde Reading Room, compiled by Time: New York, The Impossible Return.” Christian Matzke. A liminal site, the collection brings together DVD’s, books, and other In the 1980s, the Slovenian visual arts scene paraphernalia related to NSK. The State in in Yugoslavia began to open up and new Time uses the tropes of the forward march phenomena began to emerge. Part of of permanent revolution and nihilism— this trend, and one of the engines driving which are generally promoted by the western new artistic paradigms, was the Neue avant-garde modernism—in order to Slowenische Kunst (NSK) movement, which condense this teleology as an icon in itself. was established in 1984. Cooperation, The reading room makes an icon of NSK’s collaboration, and constant flow of ideas dissemination. between the founding groups of the NSK (the groups Laibach, IRWIN, and Scipion Nasice As a former artist, Nebojša Šerić-Shoba is a Sisters Theatre) gave rise to a larger visitor, confronting the exhibition’s notion movement, which broke the boundaries of of the impossible return in several ways. First, contemporary art, leaving an indelible mark he recreated one of his old artworks from on the wider cultural scene and affecting another time and place: in his former home of other areas of society. The founding groups Sarajevo in 1998, Shoba surreptitiously were soon joined by the New Collectivism hoisted dozens of “flags” of transparent design collective, the Retrovision depart- plastic onto public flagpoles lining the banks ment of film and video, and the Department of the River Miljacka. These lampposts were of Pure and Applied Philosophy. Cooperation normally reserved for national flags and between the groups in the NSK movement official occasions. With no colors, emblems resulted in projects with complex and or insignias, in the words of the artist, his conceptual media structures, openly flirting flags “alluded to the emptiness of all aspects with the historical avant-gardes of the 20th of political life, forced to exist under unjust century, while revealing a new understanding Dayton peace accord. These flags disappear- of art and society of the time. Projects by ed overnight, by order of the newly inaugu- the NSK movement have become examples rated municipal authorities—the first official of Gesamtkunstwerk, in which theatre, music, case of art censorship Sarajevo had seen visual arts, literature, and design meet. A since the end of the war. My intention was to transformation of the movement, or rather show how symbols blind us to reality. It is not 3 The James Gallery surprising that the politicians controlling speech and anthem, between artists from our public spaces can forget that the city is very different circumstances. Methodologi- the collective property of its citizens.” cally, the School of Panamerican Unrest Shoba further embodies the idea of the opened new forms of performative and edu- impossible return by re-performing a piece cational debates around political and originally created by a friend, the artist historical subjects to create a new type of Mladen Stilinović, who recently passed away. discussion infrastructure. This “nomadic think tank” crossed the hemisphere in the The disarmament of ideology provides a utopian spirit of previous historical travelers. basis for reading this exhibition as the artists Similar projects that highlight the relay seek to reveal the different mechanisms used of shared concerns across territory are NSK’s by a variety of ideologies. Without a doubt, Transnacionala project (1996) that traversed one of the principal tools of this strategy is the United States, Danica Dakić and language. Although it may seem like an SandraSterle’s Go_Home (2001), and the Lost innocent social agreement, in reality it is the Highway Expedition (2006), which took first and most direct harbinger of ideology– travel and dialogue as a political act along ex- on the streets, in shops, schools, on monu- Yugoslavia’s Highway of Brotherhood ments, food products, money, in love letters, and Unity. and poems–in every aspect of life. The installation of works by Mladen Stilinović Likewise, personal stories, and daily experi- focuses on works from the artist’s series ences framed within a given socio-political Words–Slogans that directly deal with realm are always the material for Alban language of politics, its reflection in everyday Muja’s art. He questions the structures that life, and how it functions in different social constitute the public, hinting at political and political contexts. and social patterns that rely on arbitrary aesthetic moments. His work Catch Me Communication, personal exchange between depicts the artist trying to jump the border two people, is also the central idea of Short between the United States and Mexico. Memory by Yael Bartana. In the film, a conver- Although the photograph at first glance looks sation takes place between two friends about very cheerful, the artist reveals the bitterness bird watching in the Negev desert. Their of the gesture as he raises the question of comments are heard over a sequence of stills the difficulty of the movement of people back from the Negev Brigade Memorial in Be’er and forth across borders. With this, Muja Sheva, built in memory of Israeli fighters who directly engages the impossible return as he died in 1948. The gesture of juxtaposing draws a parallel with his own homeland of images of this particular, highly politicized Kosovo, a country that anyone can enter, site with the sound of informal, personal however not many people from Kosovo have language can be seen as a complex narration the opportunity to leave and experience that weaves personal and political registers feeling connected to the world. as it addresses contested situations. Perhaps one of the most intimate projects Pablo Helguera’s deceptively simple state- presented in “NSK State in Time: New York, ment Welcome to Panamerica holds open a The Impossible Return” is a performative space to elide borders that are ever more intervention by Ištvan Išt Huzjan, in which the real. The first textbook for Helguera’s School artist realizes one of his “walks.” These of Panamerican Unrest, an ongoing project actions are always grounded in the artist’s begun in 2003, is titled: “How to forget personal stories and reflect the current everything about human conflict (and relearn condition of society. Huzjan’s horizontal it all over again).” The project’s 25,000-mile journey traversing territory can be read as a journey along the road from Anchorage kind of socio-political study, as along the way to Tierra del Fuego opened opportunities for the artist deals with various histories, laws, exchange, including collective writing of a and politics. But what demonstrates the 4 NSK State Art: New York precision of Huzjan’s artistic practice is the series, Roma people stand in front of large- vertical aspect of his journey–the depth scale reproduction of the painting Imaginary of Huzjan’s project is embodied through the View of the Grande Galerie in the Louvre as intimate collaborations that are essential a Ruin (1796) by Hubert Robert and through to their realization. For this exhibition, Huzjan that they have been reduced to living lives has undertaken the new performance Daily deprived of all rights, reduced to bare Chores on Fifth Avenue developed in existence. Yet the way in which these Roma response to the location of the James Gallery, stand and gaze at the observer reveals their as well as the flawed rhetoric of “broken dignity. Thus this work is not only a critique windows,” and the country’s current political of the politics of exclusion but also an crisis.