Mara Ambrožič Verderber
40 YEARS OF WORK
25.11.2022-28.2.2023
Galerija Loža Koper/Galleria Loggia Capodistria / Loža Gallery Koper, SLOVENIA
Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid have been working with video since 1982. They have participated in numerous video, media and film presentations and received numerous awards. In Piran Coastal Galleries they present themselves not with a restrospective, but with a rearticulation of the state of affairs in video production in the national context. This is their first presentation in the Loža Gallery Koper, where the artists are offering us a rich overview of their work.
Some important dates in their career:
In 2003, a retrospective exhibition entitled MARINA GRŽINIĆ / AINA ŠMID (1985–2003) at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany took place.
In 2011, a retrospective entitled MARINA GRŽINIĆ / AINA ŠMID, 30 YEARS: 26 WORKS IN 5 PARTS (screening of video works from 1982 to 2011) was held in Belgium at the Galerie D.O.R. in Brussels.
In 2017, a large retrospective exhibition of new works and installations entitled Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid – RADICAL CONTEMPORANEITY: 35 years of work revisited (1982–2017), curated by Aneta Stojnić, took place at Kunstraum Lakeside in Klagenfurt, Austria.
“In the 1980s we immersed ourselves in socialist film forensics through video, in the 1990s we immersed ourselves in Balkan war forensics (Srebrenica genocide) and the arrival of new media, and in the 2000s we immersed ourselves in the trashy eye of the weaponized video medium. Drowned in quotations, mixtures of styles, documentaries, and death, today we dissect necropolitics, extractivism, coloniality and toxic racism. Our work is also a story about the location of theory and subjectivities, for it is important not to forget what may pass for the theory/technology of writing and the politics of digital videofilm making.”
Paralelne zgodovine opolnomočenja in urbanosti Slovenije 1980–1990–2000 / Storie parallele dell’empowerment e dell’urbanità in Slovenia 1980–1990–2000 / Parallel Histories of Slovenia’s Empowerment and Urbanity 1980–1990–2000
https://sistory.github.io/ljsubkultmediji/index.html
Tjaša Kancler, PhD
professor Serra Húnter, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Barcelona
POLITICS, DECOLONIALITY AND DELINKING
“Every gesture is important; even if it is very small and seemingly insignificant, it cannot simply be reproduced, it must be rethought.” Marina Gržinić (2008, 39)
The crisis of representation in contemporary art is related to our ability to re-locate conflict and social contradictions in artistic work. By focusing on politics, decoloniality and delinking, videos such as “Obsession” (2008), “Naked Freedom” (2010) and “Images of Struggle / Decoloniality” (2011; done in collaboration with Zvonka T. Simčič), etc., that were produced by one of the most important video artists from Slovenia, the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, bring us a crucial insight. These videos, that were done in the context of the “economic” crisis, which was an important turning point, also reconsider the possibilities of how a powerful political statement can still be expressed in an experimental video, which is considered a very limited format. While analyzing the history of the development and expansion of the capitalist system, the artists defy the limits of the visible in everyday life and open up the possibility of rethinking video practice in relation to de/coloniality, the question of enunciation (who can speak and who is excluded), and the performativity of political thought and action.
Articles in the media:
Delo: Video skozi umetniški in politični diskurz, Nataša Čepar /[SLO] download the article>>
Dnevnik: Gre za kri in ne rdečo, Vid Lenard / [SLO] download the article>>
Camara Austria International n.161 2023, “Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid: Dissident Histories” by Francesca Lazzarini / [ENG] download pdf>>
