International screenings at the exhibition DIVA at Škuc Gallery

28 May-20 June 2009
Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana

A study exhibition entitled DIVA at Škuc Gallery showcases the video archive of SCCA-Ljubljana (DIVA Station), presenting it as a 'live archive'. The exhibition included also the screening of an international selection of video works from the archive.

The selection was changed on a weekly basis:

• THE MEETING POINT, a compilation of video works from the first annual exhibition of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Sarajevo (1997);
  
  
• BEYOND THE MIRROR, a compilation of video works from the second annual exhibition of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Sarajevo (1998);
  
  
  
  
• STOP, ACTION!, video as a tool for registration of performances.
  
  
  • ČTO DELAT?
    *Chto delat?*/What is to be done? was founded in early 2003 in  Petersburg by a workgroup of artists, critics, philosophers, and writers from Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod with the goal of merging political theory, art and activism. Since then, Chto delat? has published an English-Russian newspaper on issues central to engaged culture, with a special focus on the relationship between the re-politicization of Russian intellectual culture and its broader international context.
    (www.chtodelat.org)
    
    The Builders, 2005, 8 minutes
    The project was inspired by the painting "The Builders of Bratsk" (1961) by Viktor Popkov. As a Soviet art critic once accurately noted, "the painting's main theme is the 'resurgence of life'." By today, this piece has become an iconographic symbol of self-possessed, concentrated people, not only standing on the brink of great changes, but capable of making sense of this transformation. It is important to note that the workers on the painting are not shown in the process of working, but that they are taking a well-deserved cigarette break. They have interrupted their work and now have the chance to consider both the relations that govern it, but also the significance it will have to the transformation of society at large. This is exactly how the painting was read in its time, as an interpretation we would like to return to today.
    
    Perestroika-Songspiel. The Victory over the Coup, 2008, 26 minutes
    Directed and written by Olga Egorova, Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya, Nikolai Oleinikov and Dmitry Vilensky, with music by Mikhail Krutikov.
    The project deals with a key episode during perestroika in the Soviet Union. The action of the film unfolds on August 21th 1991, after the victory over the restorationist coup. On this day of unprecedented popular uplift it seemed democracy had won a final victory in our country and that the people should and would be able to build a new, just society. How did our heroes see that society? This is the question we try to answer in our film. The film is structured like an ancient tragedy: its dramatis personae are divided into a chorus and a group of five heroes. Our heroes are key types generated by the perestroika era, each of them with a particular vision of his/her role in history: a democrat, a businessman, a revolutionary, a nationalist, and a feminist. They act and they dream. They analyze their actions, their place in society, and their vision of the country's political path. The chorus is the incarnation of public opinion. It makes moral judgments on our heroes and it foresees their futures, as if it were gazing on the proceedings from the present day. Our film analyses the specific configuration of forces during this supremely important historical moment of contemporary history. It critiques political naiveté while also showing how difficult it is for people to realize their vision of the future together. The screenplay is based on our reading of documents and eyewitness accounts of the perestroika period.
    (Source: Chto Delat?)
    
    
   
  • David Kareyan: Sweet Repression of Ideology, performance, 2000, 7 minutes
    Sitting in a wheelchair, the artist reads fragments from books written by two Armenian academics, which were published in the same year as a sort of nationalistic memorandum. During the performance he cooked the pages from the two books and offered them to the audience as supper. In his performance he tried to reveal the invisible, non-formed and forbidden passions that emerge when social ideology clashes with the suppressed desire of the individual and the truth of the body. 
  • Alexander Brener: Street Fighter and His Limits, action in public space, 1995
    Alexander Brener was the Urbanaria guest artist on the initiative of the Irwin group. Urbanaria was the exhibition project conceived and produced by SCCA-Ljubljana between 1994 and 1997. From 10th to 13th October 1995 he performed three unannounced interventions/actions in the Ljubljana city centre: Čopova Street, Prešeren Square, Opera House terrace.
• VIDEO EDITION AUSTRIA
  The media workshop Vienna, as Austria's largest independent video distributor, published the first part of the Video Edition Austria in 1994. The 10 volume edition presented a representative view over 25 years of video art and artistic video documentation in Austria (total length 1142 min.). The Video Edition Austria was extended in 2002 with Release 01 (total length 593 min). A specialist based, clearly curated collection is herewith continued, comprising at the same time the historical process and contemporary video exhibition, condensed audio-visual information and an encyclopaedia of Austrian video art and documentation.
  Art 1/2, Art 3/4, Documentary 5, Documentary 6 (Medienwerkstat, Eva Brunner-Szabo, Gerda Lampalzer, Judith Wieser, Dunaj 2002).

  SCCA-Ljubljana is entitled for public promotion of Video Edition Austria + Release 01 in Slovenia. For the occasion of DIVA exhibition the whole Release 01 was screened.

More about DIVA at Škuc Gallery