THE PRIZES OF THE 31ST Biennial of Graphic Arts 

The Grand Prize winner of the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts is Ištvan Išt Huzjan.
The award of the jury (research residency) was given to Declan Clarke, the special mention of the jury to Pilar Quinteros and Peter Gidal received the lifetime achievement award.

The XXXI edition of the Biennale of Graphic Arts expands the very concepts of print making, graphic work, reproduction and circulation by including installations, films, archival materials, public interventions, sculptures and drawing. Nicola Lees successfully managed to create in each room a convincing dialogue between different works, problematizing both the history of the Biennale and the potentiality of new commission. The exhibition brings together young artists and historical figures, and its breath explores the state of the printing medium in many challenging directions.

Grand Prix: Ištvan Išt Huzjan
Istvan Ist Huzjan’s installation reflects – both literally and metaphorically – a complex web of historical references and formal devices in all their stratifications. The work is a polyphony of nature and memory, art history and the artist’s intimate responses to official narratives. The jury acknowledged the artist’s capacity to create a multi-layered structure that brings together locality and globality.
The work in the Biennial: Earth Reflections (2015) and Exchange Banner – OHO and Walter de Maria (2015). The work was made for the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts.

   

Jury Prize (research residency): Declan Clarke
The jury proposes to award a residency to Declan Clarke, whose film explores time and politics, the materiality of information and the physicality of the borders in a fascinating way. The work successfully incorporates graphic elements and the stillness of images, and in so doing it exemplify the curatorial strategy to expend the formal and conceptual framework of the Biennale. The work problematizes the tension between personal memories and the wider socio-political context in Europe.
The work in the Biennial: Group Portrait with Explosives (2014)

Jury special mention: Pilar Quinteros
Recognising the Biennale as an important platform for young and emerging artists. The special mention goes to Pilar Quinteros for the energy and intelligence that she brought to her commission.
The work in the Biennial: Cathedral of Freedom (2015). The work was made for the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts.

Life Achievement Award: Peter Gidal
The jury wishes to express its admiration for a life-long commitment to restless experimentation. Peter Gidal’s participation in the Biennial symbolizes the curatorial inclusion of multi-faced practices capable to explore and surpass the boundaries between literature and visual arts, experimental cinema and photography, representation, technology, conservation and dissemination.
The works in the Biennial: Index Books (1993– ), Ten Rare Lost Books; A Book Dealer's Nightmare (2011)

Photos. MGLC Archive. Photo: Jaka Babnik.

 

 

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ARCHIVE

ANNOUNCING A NEW EXHIBITION

Nataša Berk: 1st Unlimited Edition

2. 4.–19. 5. 2019

Opening:
2 April, at 7 pm
Švicarija

The exhibition is part of the year-long programme of Švicarija, which in 2019 focuses on the analysis of the state of independent journalism and the right of the public to information in pursuit of the slogan community, art and nature. The participating artists question the credibility of images and their meanings at a time of the oversaturation with visual impulses and analyse the ambiguity of media messages on the world wide web.

The spatial intervention by Nataša Berk and the group of artists at Švicarija presents their diverse visual production, which usually takes place in the virtual space of the world wide web and social networks. On this occasion, it has moved into a physical space. Together, they explore the phenomenology of the image within public circulation and its impact on the perception of reality. In ironic ways, they address the norms of the advertising industry, the tendencies of the mass media, voyeurism and the social convention of the individual’s appearance. Thus, works devoted to the consideration of the nature of the image in everyday life are presented as part of the exhibition. In such a way, photographs, videos and collages open up the questions of understanding visual culture in an era when the public space has become saturated with contents and images, questions about the manipulation of the image and the ambivalence of its meanings.    

Curator: Miha Colner


Photo: Nataša Berk.

THE 1ST GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION

TODAY

Photographic Images and Matter: Japanese Prints of the 1970s and
Japan, Yugoslavia and the Biennial of Graphic Arts: Documents of Collaboration

Tuesday, March 26, at 5.30 pm
in English
at 5 pm in Slovenian

Admission for the exhibition, the guided tour is free.
Conducted by Gregor Dražil, Museum Information Officer.

Warmly welcome!

Opening of the exhibition

Photographic Images and Matter: Japanese Prints of the 1970s and
Japan, Yugoslavia and the Biennial of Graphic Arts: Documents of Collaboration

opening:
Friday, March 22, at 6 pm

22. 3.–19. 5. 2019

The exhibition is made up of two sections. The first, bearing the title Photographic Images and Matter: Japanese Prints of the 1970s, is dedicated to Japanese printmaking of the 1970s and was organised by the Japan Foundation, while the second, the documentary section, is entitled Japan, Yugoslavia and the Biennial of Graphic Arts: Documents of Collaboration and has been prepared by the International Centre of Graphic Arts.

The travelling exhibition Photographic Images and Matter, with a selection of the most representative artists, presents the orientations within Japanese printmaking of the 1970s, which was the golden age of the print medium in Japan. The curator of the exhibition Kyoji Takizawa has made an attractive selection of artists, who have received many awards within the international arena and form the core of the modernist and avant-garde scene of the 1970s.

The documentary exhibition Japan, Yugoslavia and the Biennial of Graphic Arts: Documents of Collaboration, on the other hand, illuminates one of the many socio-artistic chapters tied to the history of the Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana. Through the selection of pictorial, archival, photographic and other material, it aims to show the communication between the geographically and politically disparate countries as part of an ambitious international art event like the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. Exhibition authors are Nevenka Šivavec and Gregor Dražil.

The exhibition is accompanied by an international symposium under the same title, taking place in the month of May.

Exhibition design: Ivian Kan Mujezinović and Mina Fina.


Tetsuya Noda: Diary, September 11, '68 (woodcut and silkscreen).