Explain what you do in 100 words! What do you like about your work? What does it mean to you to be a curator today?
I’m a freelance curator based in Ljubljana. One of the most important aspects of my curatorial practice is working collaboratively. I believe it is very important to always work in a close dialogue with others, to exchange ideas and incorporate different perspectives and approaches to the topics that I’m currently exploring, while at the same time always considering the local significance of my work.
Both of these aspects are very evident in our approach to running the ETC. Magazine together with Ajda Ana Kocutar and Hana ?eferin, as well as in our artistic direction of Ljubljana Art Weekend. By being very connected to Ljubljana’s art scene over the years we are always thinking about establishing and developing new structures and platforms that would have a long-term benefit for the local community of artists and other cultural workers, while at the same time making their work more visible domestically and internationally.
ETC. is an international art magazine published once a year with the aim of creating a medium for showcasing current international and local artistic production as well as establishing a common space in the field of emerging arts ‘from the Balkans to the Baltics’, as their tagline goes. For the next three years, ETC. Magazine is taking over the artistic direction of LJUBLJANA ART WEEKEND.
How does that relate to your focus as a curator? What questions do you deal with in your curatorial work and LJUBAW??
I think the tendency to always work inside some sort of a collective or seek possibilities of collaborations between a diverse set of art initiatives, is one of my main focuses as a curator. Considering this, I could easily relate to the mindset of Ljubljana Art Weekend, viewing it as an international platform to connect both artists and audiences, while also coming from the same local context. Here I see the overlap in mine and ETC.’s point of direction and that of LJUBAW’s. Our ambitions align in some elemental goals, which is promoting the art scene of regions we feel are often overlooked, including ours, internationally and somehow contribute to greater visibility of our local artists, art spaces, and professionals working in them. The questions in our curatorial work are therefore not so much related to artistic approaches, mediums, formats, or something of that nature, but are more concerned about notions of how we work, where, and with what purpose.
Which artists have particularly attracted your eye? Tell us about your selection of artists for the LJUBAW.
Curating Art Weekend is quite different from curating a show, as LJUBAW has multiple existing and established partners included in its network, who are carrying out their regular yearly programmes.
ETC.’s curating will therefore be twofold: curating the programme of the Art Weekend by working closely with the aforementioned partners as well as curating our own group exhibition. The latter will be directly related to the third issue of the magazine, titled Selling Out. Under this title we explored the conditions of work in the art world and beyond, the issues of commodification, the impossibility of exiting a system that demands more and more of us, as well as not working as a kind of resistance against the current situation. This relevant topic enables a wide variety of different perspectives and artistic positions. The exhibition will fittingly be located inside an abandoned shopping mall Midas in the center of the city and will include artists working in different mediums, coming from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
Meanwhile, the curation of the Art Weekend’s programme itself demands more of a horizontal perspective. That means there is no selection of artists on our part, but a selection of artistic platforms, collaborations, initiatives, curators, and other art professionals, whose practices we could match with the topics explored in the third issue of ETC., which is also the underlying theme of the main programme of the Art Weekend. It will include a round table discussion with internationally renowned curators (Caterina Avataneo, Tereza Jindrová, Marijana Schneider, and Ana Simona Zelenovi?) to discuss what it means to be a curator today, a networking event Meet Cute for artists and curators to meet, guided art walks conceptualized by different curators and artists, which will give the audience completely new insights into the artistic production in Ljubljana through the eyes of numerous art professionals, and a curated screening of DIVA Station archive videos from different periods on the topic of work.
As the curator of the LJUBAW what would you like a global audience to take away from their visit?
I believe visitors of Ljubljana Art Weekend will get a good insight into Ljubljana’s very interesting and diverse art scene. The programme we prepared reflects the extremely varied network of public institutions, galleries, and experimental exhibition spaces for a city this size, while at the same time showing that artists here are extremely resourceful and inventive in their artistic practices, despite the lack of financial and structural support or systemic policies to support them in their international endeavors. LJUBAW also means a great opportunity to gain international recognition and hopefully spark some new collaborations, especially for younger artists, who rarely get a chance to show their works abroad and are too often underrepresented even in local public institutions.
What is unique about your city?
Ljubljana is a very unique place, both historically and culturally, located in close proximity to many different culturally rich cities like Vienna and Venice. It is a contained, walkable city with a great selection of artistic and other events daily, offering everyone something to their taste. It is a very vibrant city, which at the same time feels very comfortable and slow-paced, and where it often seems like everyone knows each other. All of this makes for an incredibly rich cultural scenery – partaking in it, whether as an art professional or a spectator, is always a joyful and inspiring experience.
What are your favourite spots for dinner and a drink?
I spend a lot of time in the Moderna galerija’s café, where you can find an enjoyable working environment, excellent coffee, and a wide range of cocktails for the evening. Two culinary areas of Ljubljana that I would highlight are Trubarjeva Street, which brings together a wide variety of global cuisine, and Gornji trg, which has recently started to develop into an extremely vibrant location with the opening of new cafés, bars and restaurants.