[spectre] RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting at Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana

[Domenico Quaranta]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RE:akt!
Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting
curated by: Domenico Quaranta
www.reakt.org

Galerija Škuc
Stari trg 21, Ljubljana, Slovenia
25 March – 17 April 2009

Presentation of the book: 25 March 2009 at 19:00
Exhibition opening: 25 March 2009 at 20:00

Featured artists: Lucas Bambozzi, Vaginal Davis, Janez Janša, Janez  
Janša, Janez Janša, Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG),  
SilentCell Network (Mare Bulc, Janez Janša, Bojana Kunst, Igor  
Štromajer)

Galerija Škuc is proud to announce “RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re- 
enactment, Re-reporting”, the exhibition of the works realized in the  
last three years within the platform “RE:akt!” produced by the  
Slovenian cultural institution Aksioma.

During recent years the term re-enactment and the practices it refers  
to have enjoyed increasing success in the artistic context. On one  
hand, the success of re-enactment appears to be connected to a  
parallel, vigorous return to performance art, both as a genre  
practiced by the new generations, and as an artistic practice with its  
own historicization. On the other hand the term re-enactment  
accompanies two phenomena that at least at first glance have very  
little in common: re-staging artistic performances of the past, and  
revisiting, in performance form, “real” events – be they linked  
to history or current affairs, past or present.
“RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting” tries both to  
research on the complexity of this concept and to get rid of it,  
approaching re-enactment not merely as “live action role-playing”  
or “living history” but rather as a strategy for cultural critique,  
analysis and artistic expression. “RE:akt!” – meaning not only  
“to act again” but also “to respond to / to react upon” and  
“Regarding: act!”– confronts current ideological and intellectual  
canons, power structures, policies, and distribution channels by re- 
enacting selected historical and culturally relevant events. Through  
processes of analysis, deconstruction, re-enactment and re-reporting,  
the intermedia research and presentation project “RE:akt!” examines  
media’s roles in manipulating perceptions and creating postmodern  
historical myths and contemporary mythology.

Thus, “RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting”, curated  
by the Italian art critic and curator Domenico Quaranta, will collect  
ten different approaches to the concept of enaction: from Ich Lubbe  
Berlin! (2005, SilentCell Network), a take on the 1933 burning of the  
Reichstag building in Berlin, which explores the contemporary meaning  
of symbols such as the Reichstag itself, and of concepts such as  
“communism” and “terrorism”; to Das KAPITAL (2006, Janez  
Janša), a performance which re-stages the 1968 occupation of  
Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces with the languages of popular  
street artists; from C'était un rendez-vous (déja vu) (Janez Janša  
in collaboration with Quentin Drouet), a project that plays with the  
paradigmatic history of a well known artwork, the film C'était un  
rendez-vous by Claude Lelouch, from “cinema verité” to “media  
fiction”; to VD as VB (2007), a series of actions in which Vaginal  
Davis, the “grande dame” of the queer underground in Los Angeles,  
dialogues with Vanessa Beecroft's performances. In Mount Triglav on  
Mount Triglav (2007), the three artists Janez Janša, Janez Janša and  
Janez Janša re-stage a well known performance of the OHO group from  
the late Sixties, recently appropriated by the IRWIN group for their  
Like to Like Series (2004), performing it on the Mount Triglav itself,  
and then translating it into a monumental golden sculpture; while in  
Slovene National Theatre (2007), Janez Janša translates an infamous  
fact of recent racism against Gypsies – known in Slovenia as “the  
Ambrus case” - into a piece of theatre, re-invoicing it as it was  
featured by the mass media. In their Synthetic Performances (2007),  
Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG reenact on the virtual  
platform of Second Life a series of historical performances that are  
all but virtual, raising issues such as body, violence, sex and pain,  
thus exploring the meaning of these very issues in a virtual world. In  
SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga (2007), Janez Janša (in collaboration with  
Dejan Dragosavac Ruta) again adds details and proofs of evidence to an  
“urban legend” recently circulated on the Net and mainstream media,  
concerning the presumed creation of a cyber-sex doll by the Nazis.  
Thus, performance and reenactment are far from being the only  
strategies adopted in “RE:akt!”, which also involves strategies  
such as documentation, remix, re-invoicement, reconstruction and  
remediation (such as in the project The Day São Paulo Stopped 2009 by  
Brazilian artist Lucas Bambozzi), and media such as photographic  
print, video, media installation and even architecture (such as in the  
project Il porto dell'amore, by Janez Janša (in collaboration with Bor  
Pungerčič), an homage to Fiume as an example of pirate utopia).

On Wednesday, March 25, Škuc will host the presentation of the book  
RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting featuring the co- 
editors Janez Janša, artist and director of Aksioma and the italian  
theoretician Antonio Caronia. The book was published on March 2009 by  
FPeditions and includes contributions by Rod Dickinson, Jennifer  
Allen, Jan Verwoert, Antonio Caronia and Domenico Quaranta. More: www.reakt.org/book

On Saturday, March 28, SS-XXX | Die Frau Helga (2007), by Janez Janša  
will be presented in a solo show at the Fabio Paris Art Gallery in  
Brescia, Italy. More: www.fabioparisartgallery.com.

On May 22, the exhibition will travel to MMSU – Museum of Modern and  
Contemporary Art in Rijeka (Croatia).


FREE IMAGES FOR PRESS and MORE INFO:
www.reakt.org/press

Production:
Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
www.aksioma.org

Galerija Škuc
http://www.galerija.skuc-drustvo.si/

Supported by:
the European Cultural Foundation www.eurocult.org
the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia www.mk.gov.si
the Municipality of Ljubljana www.ljubljana.si
the Italian Cultural Institut in Ljubljana www.iiclubiana.esteri.it/IIC_Lubiana
The programme of Galerija Škuc is supported by the Ministry of Culture  
of Republic of Slovenia and the City Council Ljubljana-Cultural  
department.

Contact:
Marcela Okretič
Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
Neubergerjeva 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
gsm : +386 – (0)41 250 830
e-mail: aksioma4 at siol.net
www.aksioma.org



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Domenico Quaranta

mob. +39 340 2392478
email. qrndnc at yahoo.it
home. vicolo San Giorgio 18 - 25122 brescia (BS)
web. http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/

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