Artists: Veli & Amos, Small but dangers, Iva Tratnik vs. Matej Stupica, Nina Koželj, Dan Adlešič and Pri zlatem stegnu (Nataša & Katja Skušek)
The Fight Club exhibition was conceived as a reflex response to the invitation to participate in a curatorial duel. Presented to the public in a playful and populist manner, its polemical duality of the format and purpose of an experimental event broaches unpleasant questions provocatively from the perspectives of sociology and cultural studies and it problematizes the denigrated value of art in the present context.
A cluster of fleeting associations and assumption, which bring about performances and an open kind of toying with art and the equation between the exhibition and spectacle, leads to a naïve and awkward sense of powerlessness, followed by disappointment due to the awareness of one’s own limitations and the inevitable need to accept responsibility.
The Fight Club exhibition draws a parallel between society and the art system and it questions the perception of the role of art in the present social context. The title of the exhibition refers to the presented social context in the eponymous novel (unbridled consumption, alienation from work, the sense of the meaninglessness of life, and the utter exhaustion of the resources of the Western system’s paternalistic power) and it alludes to the need to keep creating emergency exists that make survival within the system possible.
MATCH: YASMIN MARTÍN VODOPIVEC VS. MATJAŽ BRULC
Two curators, two artist teams, two exhibitions, two opening addresses, two receptions. Whose exhibition will be better? The decision will be in the hands of visitors casting their votes.
Rules: each curator picks an artwork made by artists in their own team that best matches the exhibition design in terms of quality and concept. Then they also choose one work each from the other artist team. The premises and conditions of exhibition-making and the means available to each team are as equal as possible. Margin decisions are made by tossing a coin. An adequate course of the match is to be ensured by Jani Pirnat, curator of the Match Gallery, who has devised the exhibition concept and adapted the rules based on the curator battle between Aaron Moulton, Carson Chan and Despina Stokou, which took place in Grimmuseum, Berlin in 2011. — Jani Pirnat
Match results: 437 ballots, 19 invalids, YASMIN MARTÍN VODOPIVEC 270 ballots, MATJAŽ BRULC 148 ballots.
Read More: https://mgml.si/en/match-gallery/exhibitions/362/match-yasmin-martin-vodopivec-vs-matjaz-brulc/
Curatorial match: Yasmin Martín Vodopivec vs. Matjaž Brulc
Match Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
16 November 2016 – 17 January 2017
Concept and selection of curators: Jani Pirnat
Support: The Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana
Photos: Matevž Paternoster. MGML Archive.
