Janez Janša: Life I and II (in progress)

Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec already presented Janez Janša as an artist in 2010 when it mounted an exhibition of the project Signature, which was created together with his two namesakes and examined the question of an individual’s identification through naming and the question of authorship. This time, his work is presented in an independent exhibition that, like the decision to change his name, which resulted in the merging of the artist’s private and public life, brings closer the fields of art and life.   

Janez Janša’s Life I and II [In Progress] focuses on how art fits into and influences life today. The exhibition consists of two parts. The set-up of Life I [In Progress] consists of different (around 50) performative situations, work stations that, with their instructions, invite the spectators to take part in a certain happening or to perform a certain action. The instructions at individual “stations” were created by a group of authors and some of them include segments that refer directly to the history of performance art. The spectators are thus invited to recall events from their own life, imagine that they are angry and break a plate; they can listen to political speeches, paint Picasso’s famous Guernica or raise glasses with a friend.

The starting point of the second part of the exhibition, entitled Life II [In Progress], is determined by Imponderabilia, a 1977 performance by Marina Abramović and Ulay. Marina and Ulay performed it at a gallery in Bologna; they stood naked at the entrance opposite each other so that the visitors had to pass between them to enter the gallery. The performance essentially problematizes many social categories – such as nakedness, the role of artists, the position of spectators – and places individuals in a situation in which they have to make certain decisions – to enter or not, which direction to face upon entering, etc. Life II [In Progress] is a sort of a quotation of the mentioned performance; it is placed in a different time and the execution itself is paraphrased in the sense that its main actors include not only the artist, as was the case in the mentioned performance by Marina and Ulay, but also pregnant women who in large-format photos stand in the doors, thus marking also the symbolic and physical place of a passage.

With both set-ups, Life I and II [In Progress], the artist touches on the crucial topics of life and, by actively involving the audience in the exhibition, extends these topics into the field of reflection on the position of contemporary art today, on participative practices within museum set-ups and on ourselves.

In the framework of the exhibition, a discussion with the artist about his work will take place on 21 April at 6 p.m. at the Ravne Cultural Centre. The discussion has been organized in cooperation with Zadruga ZRaven as part of their series of discussions entitled Robniki.

The exhibition has been organized in cooperation with the Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec .