The Unbearable Lightness of (Artistic) Freedom 2

This issue of journal Maska, The Unbearable Lightness of (Artistic) Freedom 2, brings a ‘practical’ response to last year’s (theoretical) issue of the same title. It features a series of intriguing original analyses of last year’s performances by artists working in Slovenia; the analyses can be read as symptoms of the current condition in the field of performing arts. ž

The section ‘Media, Democracy, Money, Army’ comprises interviews with the artists and analyses of the performances that shed light on various strategies of resisting the anaesthetic effect of the power of the capital. The analysis of micro-problems and symptoms revealed in the performance ‘The State of Affairs’ serves as the starting point for the section of the same title, which deals with the field of contemporary dance, its strategies of visibility and its entrapment in the establishment of the art market.

This section also features an analysis of Gibanica, the platform for Slovenian contemporary dance, and the Manifesto of dancer and choreographer Mala Kline. The Summer issue of Maska features interviews with Bojan Jablanovec, Davide Grassi, Iztok Kovač and Emil Hrvatin, and texts by Bojana Kunst, Marina Gržinić, Ana Vujanović, Katja Praznik, Aldo Milohnić and Tomaž Toporišič, in which the authors discuss different types of investment in representation as a processual exchange in various artistic projects, from DemoKino and Incasso to Mozart in Person.