MAO and the Photon Gallery are preparing an exhibition of photographs from the Junij International Art Collection as part of the Photonic Moments of the Photography Month 2012 festival. The exhibition focuses exclusively on photographic practices and their derivatives within this rich international collection. On Tuesday, June 5, at 7 p.m., we will open it with a performance...
MAO and the Photon Gallery are preparing an exhibition of photographs from the Junij International Art Collection as part of the Photonic Moments of the Photography Month 2012 festival. The exhibition focuses exclusively on photographic practices and their derivatives within this rich international collection. On Tuesday, June 5, at 7 p.m., it will be opened with the performance Žrtvenik by Stane Jagodič and Andraž Magajna, and drama actor Niko Goršič will read the Junij Group Manifesto.
Grupo Junij was founded by a group of artists who completed their studies at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts around 1970, and the Junij International Art Collection (MLZJ), which organically grew out of their group through contacts with foreign artists, was officially founded in 1980. The Junij Society donated it to the Museum of Architecture and Design in 1996.
The collection was designed by the members of Grupa Junij, especially Stane Jagodič, and some foreign gallerists, editors and artists also participated. More than 140 domestic and foreign authors with a total of around 1300 works are represented in the collection. The collection consists of photographs, works in mixed techniques, graphics, drawings and caricatures, paintings and even some plastics.
Today, we see the formation of the collection as a unique artistic-curator project that predicted tectonic shifts in the art of the 20th century, i.e. the break with the ideological uniformity of modernism and the transition to the pluralism of postmodernism.
The photographic part of the MLZJ today represents the best overview of foreign photographic works from the seventies and partly also from the eighties of the 20th century in Slovenian public collections. It is a photograph that goes beyond a simple insight into reality. The conceptual arc of this selection goes from records with a neo-expressionist and surrealist touch, through landartistic documents to metaphotographic experiments. Around 100 works will be presented by 59 authors from 18 countries.
The selection of works was prepared by Miha Colnar, Photon, and Primož Lampič, Museum of Architecture and Design.