On Tuesday, November 19, at 7:00 PM, the MCAM Gallery will host the official opening of the exhibition by the group Laibach, titled “AUSSTELLUNG! LAIBACH KUNST: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES.”

“Laibach is a vast ocean that merges into the collective spirit. An experience for all the senses. Laibach can be understood as an absolute, a universal symbol of the new era, and the essential expression of the universal truth of the present moment. Through an eclectic fusion of seemingly incompatible elements, Laibach creates works of art—universal symbols of the contemporary moment. A sensory experience, symbolism, and aesthetics in the elements to create layered and multi-meaning images that play with symbols and irony, creating a sense of alienation for the audience. It challenges its own beliefs and perceptions through symbolic narratives,” wrote the exhibition curator, Natalija Đuranović, in the accompanying text.

Đuranović emphasizes that their contribution to contemporary art lies in the ongoing controversy of the comprehensive image of their oeuvre, which has reflected upon the audience—affirmation and its negation, or substitution, recalling one of the most famous theses at the core of Laibach’s philosophy: “All art is subject to political manipulation, except that which speaks the language of the same manipulation.”

“Their aesthetics, based on image and sound in specific visual styles such as uniforms and monumental images, evoke emotions in the observer, who is, in a frozen moment, left to the experience,” she wrote.

The group Laibach was founded in 1980 in Trbovlje, as part of the Slovenian or, at that time, broader Yugoslav punk and alternative art movement of the 1980s. The provocative stance the members took from the beginning was understood as a response to the totalitarianism of the then SFRY. The Laibach group does not challenge the system through parody or direct criticism; their specific mode of provocation is usually defined as over-identification. Or, as they themselves say: “Art and totalitarianism are not mutually exclusive. Totalitarian regimes abolish the illusion of revolutionary individual artistic freedom.”

Laibach emphasizes that Laibach Kunst is a principle of conscious renunciation of personal taste, judgment, and conviction: “It is a free depersonalization, a voluntary assumption of the role of ideology, demasking and recapitulating the regime’s postmodernism.”

“Politics is the highest form of popular culture, and we who create contemporary popular culture consider ourselves politicians.” 

However, Laibach points out that all art is subject to political manipulation, except that which speaks the language of that same manipulation — “To speak in political terms means to uncover and acknowledge the omnipresence of politics.”

Their program, described in the document “Laibach: 10 Points of the Convention” (1982), envisions, among other things, a method of work modeled after industrial production and totalitarian regimes, where the voice of the organization is more important than the voice of the individual. In this way, the attribution of individual authors was never emphasized in their works; they always formally appeared solely under the title “Laibach” or “Laibach Kunst.”

Project supported by Telekom Montenegro.