TRANSformacije Collection, book no. 43
Collection editor: Gregor Moder
©Maska, Ljubljana, 2019
17 × 24cm, 265 pages
ISBN 978-961-6572-54-5
This book was published in Slovenian.
Mladen Dolar: Uprizarjanje konceptov. Spisi o umetnosti
Uprizarjanje konceptov brings a selection of texts on art Mladen Dolar wrote in the past two decades for various occasions and on various initiatives. They focus on diverse topics from theatre (general reflections about the theatre and different individual performances), voice and music, the status of the name (inspired by the three Janez Janšas) and NSK to visual art, architecture, crime-scene photos, etc.
Although the topics and their inspirations are diverse, they are guided by a common thread and a single effort: the delicate edge between the universality of concepts and the singularity of artworks and artistic practices; the universal address of art that arises from singularity; the break established by art in relation to what seemed possible thus far.
As much as these texts are a meeting of art and philosophy, they never position philosophy to the side of concepts and ideas or art to the side of the senses and feelings. In contrary, the writings strive to show that art itself thinks and produces concepts, while philosophy requires performances and materialisation to be able to be on the level of its concept.
TRANSformacije Collection, book no. 43
Collection editor: Gregor Moder
©Maska, Ljubljana, 2019
17 × 24cm, 265 pages
ISBN 978-961-6572-54-5
This book was published in Slovenian.
The Eternity Of Art
“Art […] therefore establishes a break of the universal in the particularities of the circumstances. It is a way for these circumstances to reach beyond themselves and reach everybody, however far they may be in space and time. Yet art does not achieve this by distancing from these circumstances – this is never possible and nothing is more boring and dull than art that tries to be directly universal and hide how it is attached to time, art that does not want to bother with trivialities and the lowly filth of its era, art that wants eternity straight away. But it can only reach “eternity” by completely absorbing its entire inclusion in the historic moment and is able to produce a cut into the universal from this position. Art is the one that makes most apparent how a historical moment breaks with itself. There is no substantial precision of given historical conditions which could then explain their spiritual formations. In contrary, these spiritual formations on the one hand enter into their own provisions that do not have an independent consistency without them, and on the other hand reach beyond them at the same time. In other words: art is the constant indicator of time being “out of joint” as Hamlet describes it. And in this state of being out of joint, the spark of universality arises. The fact that universality is always conditioned, limited with the particular conditions of its origin never changes its universal character but, quite the contrary, really enables it.”
Mladen Dolar
Table of Contents
Uvod
TEATER
Uprizarjanje konceptov
IME
Kaj je v imenu?
GLAS
Uvod v tišino
Glasba in hrup
KOMADI
Konec sveta
Alcestova pregreha
Videz in stvar sama
Onkraj zavesti
Če pride revizor
Demokracija nas bo ugnobila
SLOVENSKE REČI
Prilika o gospodarju in služabniku
Novi časi, stari časi
Anti-Alamut
Bolj strašna noč
Čemu služi glasba?
State of art
VIZUALNO
Oblast in arhitektura
Tanka črta
VALIE EXPORT
Oko zakona
WAS IST KUNST
Conny Habbel: Intervju z Mladenom Dolarjem
KODA
Kdo se boji Vanesse Place?
Bibliografija
Imensko in stvarno kazalo
About the Author
Mladen Dolar is a professor and scientific councillor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana. The areas of his research span Classical German Philosophy, contemporary French thought, psychoanalysis, and art theory. He lectures in numerous universities in Europe and America. In Slovenian language, he published a dozen books, from Struktura fašističnega gospostva (1982) to Bit in njen dvojnik (2017). His English-language work on voice, A Voice and Nothing More (2006) has been translated into ten languages. He is one of the founders of what the world knows as the “Ljubljana Lacanian School”.
Reception in Public
Janez Markeš: Koncepti in naša pot do nesmrtnosti
(Delo, 22. 10. 2019)
Writing the essays on different occasions, “one by one”, as he says, the author wove them into a “rigorous conceptual web”. The selection was published as a book on the initiative of Maska publishing house. Due to space limitations, we will shortly present the first three chapters that are also the most essential (Teater, Ime, and Glas), as they reflect the entire book. The reader will find much more in the rest of the chapters: concrete works by great authors, Slovenian cultural affairs (Linhart, Cankar, Bartol …), authority and architecture, and also an interview Conny Habber made with the Slovenian philosopher.
Eva Kučera Šmon: Koncept uprizarjanja konceptov
Amfiteater / let. 8, št. 2 / 2020
The texts written in different time periods and upon different initiatives focus on the relationship between art and philosophy. The selection is not just a good overview of the relationship but a certain overview of Dolar’s oeuvre or at least its topics, the concepts that he always debated in connection with existing performances or even foresaw for certain performances.