DIE LIEBE IST DIE GRÖSSTE KRAFT, DIE ALLES SCHAFFT
1985/2009, acrylic on felt canvas, 280 x 195 cm
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After the payment for the artwork has been received, the Laibach WTC team will contact the buyer regarding shipping arrangements. Upon agreement with the buyer, Laibach WTC can arrange shipping and insurance of the item at the buyer's expense. Alternatively, it is possible for any purchased artwork to be collected from Laibach WTC by prior arrangement. Customs and export fees are the responsibility of the buyer. For further information see “Terms and details”.
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Instrumentality of the State Machine – Die Liebe ist die grösste Kraft, die alles schafft, painted, signed, and stamped by Laibach
For the original 1985 poster and this painting, Laibach drew on John Heartfield's photomontage ”Göring, Executioner of the Third Reich”, which appeared on the cover of the AIZ (Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung - translation: Workers Pictorial Newspaper)in September 1933. It shows Hermann Göring standing in front of the burning Reichstag in a bloodstained butcher's apron. The montage concerned the trial of the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe, who was accused of setting fire to the Reichstag, which had just begun. Heartfield’s designed the photomontage as criticism of the persecution of political opponents of Nazism. Just before the fire at the end of February 1933, the Nazi regime accused the Communists of setting the fire as part of a conspiracy. The police and the SA – the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party - used this as an excuse to persecute members of the KPD and SPD – the Communist and Social Democratic parties - and deport them to improvised concentration camps. Hermann Göring, as Acting Minister of the Interior of Prussia, led the persecution, especially in Berlin.
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Instead of Hermann Göring's head, Laibach mounted the head of Joseph Beuys, who, as one of Germany's leading artists stirred up both the political and artistic communities with his unconventional political and social activism. In 1985, the band members met Joseph Beuys and arranged with him to join them on stage for some concerts in Germany. Unfortunately, due to Beuys' illness, the collaboration did not take place. Beuys died in 1986. With this artwork Laibach pays tribute to both Heartfield and Beuys.
The present painting itself was created in 2008–2009 as part of a larger installation, entitled “Instrumentality of the State Machine”, which Laibach first presented in this setting in 2009 at their extensive retrospective exhibition “AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST – RECAPITULATION”, at the Muzeum Sztuki Gallery of Modern Art in Łódź, Poland, and later as well in an exhibition in Zagreb, at Dom HDLU 2011, entitled “AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST – Ceci n'est pas Malevich”.
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Created by members of Laibach, signed with four names (Eber, Saliger, Dachauer and Keller), and stamped with the group's emblem as well as their collective signature.
Terms and details:
Upon prior request, it is possible to view artwork live at a Laibach WTC location in Ljubljana, Slovenia. If you are interested in doing so, please write to wtc.support@laibach.org.
The listed price includes 9,5% value-added tax (VAT). If you are located outside the EU, or are a legal entity that is part of EU reverse charge system, you may take this into account when submitting your offer.
The stated purchase price is valid upon collection at a Laibach WTC location in Ljubljana and does not include the shipping, insurance, customs and excise charges, or import / export fees. After the payment for the artwork will be received, the Laibach WTC team will contact the buyer regarding collection or shipping.
Upon prior agreement with the buyer, and at the buyer’s expense, Laibach WTC can arrange shipping and possible insurance of the item. The shipping fee will depend on the location of the buyer and the size and weight of the item. When exporting artwork outside the EU, Laibach WTC will also prepare the necessary documentation for export customs clearance, but the buyer will be responsible for the payment the customs and excise and export / import fees.
For all other issues, the Terms of service of the Laibach WTC online store apply.
Laibach first presented the motifs of the Red Districts in 1980 at the Delavski dom (Workers' Home) culture centre in Trbovlje – at an exhibition that never took place (because it was banned by the local municipal authorities). Subsequently, Laibach presented the same motifs at their first exhibitions in Belgrade (Srećna galerija, 1981), Ljubljana (ŠKUC Gallery, 1982), and Zagreb (PM Gallery, 1983).
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In the following decades, the group showed various variations of the Red Districts in some of their major exhibitions. In 2009, eight motifs were printed on aluminium plates and presented at retrospectives of their visual work in Łódź (Muzeum Sztuki, 2009), Maribor (UGM, 2011), Zagreb (HDLU, 2011), as well as in Olomouc (Galerie Caesar, 2016) and some other galleries.
The original linocuts represent historical motifs from the so-called Red Districts, as the industrial basin of Slovenia in the Zasavje region is called, which encompasses the towns of Trbovlje, Zagorje, and Hrastnik, i.e. the environmental area where the band Laibach were formed in 1980. These ‘industrial’ motifs became part of the basic aesthetic content of Laibach, which never denied their industrial-cultural origins, and after the formal establishment of the broader umbrella art formation Neue Slowenische Kunst (1984–1992), these motifs were adopted and appropriated from Laibach by other NSK groups, most notably by the Irwin painting group.
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