NSK from Kapital to Capital - Book
NSK from Kapital to Capital: Neue Slowenische Kunst – The Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia
Edited by Zdenka Badovinac, Eda Čufer and Anthony Gardner
Co-published and distributed by MIT Press
Following the eponymous exhibition, an extensive book about NSK has just been published. It features the work of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) art collective throughout the decade of the 1980s. Beginning with the early work of Laibach and the founding of NSK, the book focuses on telling the story of NSK, which adopted the symbols, codes and motifs pertaining to contradictory ideologies and art traditions. Combining primary documents, period artifacts and contextual information, the book provides unprecedented insight into the distribution and reception of NSK during the decade of social unrest that led to the end of Yugoslavia and socialism. The editors commissioned several new texts which contextualize the primary documents and expand and deepen the scholarship of art and culture of the time. In addition to that, texts by early critics and commentators and reprinted.
Besides the authors of the primary documents, the authors of the texts are: Bojan Anđelković, Inke Arns, Zdenka Badovinac, Barbara Borčić, Dominic Boyer, Eda Čufer, Mladen Dolar, Goran Đorđević, Anthony Gardner, Gediminas Gasparavičius, Boris Groys, Marina Gržinić, Chrissie Iles, Taras Kermauner, Željko Kipke, Jela Krečič, Lev Kreft, Dejan Kršić, Dušan Mandič, Tomaž Mastnak, Rastko Močnik, Alexei Monroe, Stojan Pelko, Tone Peršak, Katja Praznik, Daniel R. Quiles, Dimitrij Rupel, Sylvia Sasse, Stevphen Shukaitis, Lilijana Stepančič, Darko Štrajn, Igor Vidmar, Catherine Wood, Alexei Yurchak, Jaša L. Zlobec in Slavoj Žižek; chronology of Neue Slowenische Kunst and its Groups from 1980 til 1992 was written by Jana Intihar Ferjan.
CONTENT of the BOOK
Exhibition
The NSK common room
Laibach room
IRWIN room
Theatre groups room (Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, Cosmokinetic Theatre Rdeči pilot, Cosmokinetic Cabinet Noordung)
Other NSK departments room (New Collectivism, Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy, Retrovision, Film, Builders)
Zdenka Badovinac An Exhibition about the NSK Commons: NSK from Kapital to Capital. Neue Slowenische Kunst –an Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia
Introduction
Zdenka Badovinac, Eda Čufer and Anthony Gardner Introduction: Neue Slowenische Kunst from Kapital to Capital
Initiation: The Early 1980s and the Emergence of the NSK Groups
Darko Štrajn, Black -and -White Shock in Trbovlje
Goran Đorđević, A Letter to the Theoria Editorial Board
Dušan Mandič, Harbingers of the Apocalypse: An Exhibition of Works by Belgrade Artist Goran Đorđević
Slavoj Žižek, History and Repetition: How “Truth Arises Out of Misrecognition”
Mladen Dolar, Fascism through Psychoanalysis
Taras Kermauner, X + (–) 11 = ?
Tone Peršak, The Retrogarde as Alternative Avant-Garde?
Marina Gržinić, Graffiti as a Subversion of Slovenian Cultural Space
Slavoj Žižek, Ideology, Cynicism, Punk
Formative Stage: From Neue Slowenische Kunst (1984) to NSK State in Time (1992)
Željko Kipke, Organic Eclectics
Rastko Močnik, Postmodernism and the Alternative
Marina Gržinić, Was ist Kunst
Dimitrij Rupel, Retrogardism
Jaša L. Zlobec, A Sterile Baptism in a Hollow Temple
Lev Kreft, Avant-Garde, Retro-Garde and Progress
Mladen Dolar, Psychoanalysis in Power: On Fascism, Marxism and the Poster Scandal
Slavoj Žižek, A Letter from Afar
Tomaž Mastnak, On the Soul of Social Movements: A Few Remarks from Up Close on Žižek’s Letter from Afar
Chrissie Iles, Perpetual Present
Boris Groys, The IRWIN Group: More Total Than Totalitarianism
Stojan Pelko, Dragan Živadinov – Noordung Prayer Machine
Codification: Selected Critical Essays on NSK during Its First Decade
Marina Gržinić, Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK): The Art Groups Laibach, IRWIN, and Noordung
Cosmokinetical Theatre Cabinet – New Strategies in the Nineties
Slavoj Žižek, Why Are Laibach and NSK not Fascists?
Slavoj Žižek, The Enlightenment in Laibach
Lilijana Stepančič, The Poster Scandal: New Collectivism and the 1987 Youth Day
Inke Arns, Mobile States / Shifting Borders / Moving Entities: The Slovenian Artists’ Collective
Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK)
Eda Čufer, Athletics of the Eye: Baptism and the Problem of Writing and Reading Contemporary
Performance
Alexei Monroe, Was ist Kunst? (Actually Existing Retrogardism)
Inke Arns & Sylvia Sasse, Subversive Affirmation: On Mimesis as a Strategy of Resistance
Historicization: Art- Historical and Intercultural Contextualization from a Contemporary Perspective
Tomaž Mastnak, Civil Society and Fascism
Igor Vidmar, In the Name of Idea: The Birth of Action from the Spirit of Music
Barbara Borčić, The ŠKUC Gallery, Alternative Culture, and Neue Slowenische Kunst in the 1980s
Catherine Wood, Back to USA, Replayed
Stevphen Shukaitis, Icons of Futures Past: IRWIN, Neue Slowenische Kunst, and the Spiritual Politics of Artistic Provocation
Bojan Anđelković, The Genealogy of the Spectator’s View in the Dragan Živadinov Theatre
Katja Praznik, Ideological Subversion vs. Cultural Policy of Late Socialism: The Case of the Scipion
Nasice Sisters Theatre (SNST)
Jela Krečič, Manifestos and Programmes
Dejan Kršić, Fragments on the Matter of New Collectivism
Dominic Boyer & Alexei Yurchak, American Stiob: Or, What Late-Socialist Aesthetics of Parody Reveal about Contemporary Political Culture in the West
Gediminas Gasparavičius, Promises and Premises of Art as a State: NSK Embassy Moscow and its Contexts
Rastko Močnik, East!
Daniel R. Quiles, S(h)ifters: Over-identification in Latin America, 1966–1989
Anthony Gardner, Neue Slowenische Kunst 1984–1992: From the Critique of Institutions to the Pursuit of Independence
Mladen Dolar, State of the Art
Primary documents
Laibach, From the Internal Book of Laws: Constitution of Membership and Basic Duties of
NSK Members
Laibach, 10 Items of the Covenant
Laibach, Art and Totalitarianism
Laibach, XY – Unsolved
IRWIN, The program of IRWIN group
IRWIN, Retro Principle: The Principle of Manipulation With the Memory of the Visible Emphasized Eclecticism – the Platform for National Authenticity
IRWIN, Interview, Bill Furlong and Mike Archer
The Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, The Founding Act
The Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, The First Sisters Letter, The Second Sisters Letter
Cosmokinetic Theatre Rdeči pilot, The Founding Document
Cosmokinetic Cabinet Noordung, Prayer Machine
New Collectivism, Proclamation
Retrovision, Retrovision
Film, Beauty and Nation: A Heimat film
Builders, Builders
Builders, Constructions I, Constructions II
Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy, Peter Mlakar's poetry, writings and addresses
Alexei Monroe, Philosophy, Literature and Rhetoric: God – Enjoyment – The Absolute
Eda Čufer & IRWIN, NSK State in Time
Jana Intihar Ferjan, Chronology of Neue Slowenische Kunst and its Groups 1980–1992
Glossary
NSK Groups
Appendix A: List of the Exhibits
Appendix B: The Full Text of Tomaž Mastnak's The 1980s: A Retro Future
Index
Translators
Sources