A seminar with Marina Gržinić and Jovita Pristovšek offered a compelling interpretation of the development of the Slovenian artistic scene during the 1980s, as well as introducing the Confrontations participants to the microhistory of the Metelkova site and the complex relationship of the museum to local social movements. Gržinić shared some of her own memories and experiences of the eventful 1980s, emphasising the role of Škuc gallery in giving a platform to alternative currents and the sub-cultural challenge to the heteronormative values of both socialism and capitalism in the period, noting that, ‘if post-modernism was political anywhere, it was under socialism.’

(MRF)

Moderna galerija director Zdenka Badovinac gave a first hand account of the institutional history of a museum that was instrumental in shaping the course of East European art history during the first post-communist decades, through exhibitions such as Body and the East and the founding of regionally-focussed Arteast 2000+ Collection. Curator Igor Španjol specifically introduced the series of four exhibitions revisiting the art of the 1980s that were recently staged by the museum.
Our final afternoon at MSUM+ also included a guest lecture by art historian Beti Žerovc, who generously shared insights into the importance of various deep historical, geopolitical and distinctly local factors in the course taken by Slovenian art, embedded at the crossroads of German-speaking and Slavic cultures.  We came together in a circle to evaluate the events and collective experience of the first Confrontations sessions in Zagreb and Ljubljana.
(MRF)