Venice Biennale: Jasmina Cibic
Inspired by Slovenian politics, culture and history Jasmina Cibic’s work achieves a balance between the politics of government and the politics of contemporary art. fluoro spoke to the artist about her project for the iconic Venice Biennale.
Cibic grew up in Slovenia, a place she found as an ongoing source of inspiration by looking to its role as a border country, “as an artist I find this territory an amazing ground for the study of how ideological and political change shape the physical landscape, the architecture and the scenography of political power.”
Speaking of her recent project, ‘For our Economy and Culture’, for the Slovenian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Cibic also shed further light on her background and unique perspective.
(f) Tell us about your background and how you came to be a practicing artist.
(JC) I grew up in the 1980s in former Yugoslavia and after the country’s break up I went on to study fine art in Venice followed by an MA at Goldsmiths College in London. Naturally each of these countries had a very different idea about what contemporary art should be doing and achieving.
I became very interested in the questions around soft power and how the countries with a lack of an art system still understand the use value of soft power in cultural exports.
(f) You currently balance your time between London and Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. What perspective does this give to your work?
(JC) The critically engaged London art sector has turned towards collaging once again. Last time it did so in the 1980s, this time what is being used as quite a common technique is low fi and low budget solutions. The large producers and blue chip artists with expensive projects counterbalance these low fi pieces.
The difference with Slovenia is that we do not have the large producers or blue chip artists – as we have never developed a proper private art sector. We do not have collectors or private sponsors. So the critically engaged Slovenian artists are holding their emancipatory poses by mimicking the state system and dealing more with the question of authority than aesthetics.
This meeting point is where my practice lies – and thrives in.
(f) Why did you fell the need to explore this topic through film?
(JC) Each of my projects uses the media, which I identify to be the correct one to address a specific subject or exhibition format. ‘For our Economy and Culture’ is an immersive installation comprising of a completely remodeled interior of the gallery. The interior is mimicking the official national state architecture and is wallpapered with illustrations of the Hitler beetle, an endemic Slovenian beetle named after Hitler in 1930s.
Furthermore there are two film installations – one presenting a word for word re-enactment of a 1957 parliamentary debate, the other an interview with Tito’s chief architect, who was rebuilding the national architecture for the new state.
Mostly I do work as an installation artist, but for this project, the inclusion of a narrative was of utmost importance – the format of moving image was identified as the correct counterpart in helping to achieve the desired effect of overlaying re-visited and re-addressed historical documents.
(f) What message do you hope visitors to the Slovenian Pavilion take away with them?
(JC) The best two statements I have heard so far, have been the combination of an old Venetian lady looking through the large vitrine onto the Hitler bug wallpaper, where the still life images from the Slovenian parliament are hanging saying: “This is all a bit too traditional!”. She was followed by a young Italian curator asking: “Are you not afraid they will torch the gallery!?”
This is exactly how ideology works – most of the onlookers do not know, they are looking at one million Hitlers… And speaking of the art and life debate, I feel contemporary art just might present those short circuits that break our normal flow of events and make us see things from a different angle.
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This post forms part of fluoro’s coverage of the 55th Venice Biennale.
