In the recent history of Slovenian visual art, the name of Igor Zabel has become almost synonymous with in-depth reflection on a number of artistic practices and phenomena and their sociopolitical contexts. The consideration he gave to the developments in art of his time, thus (also) co-informing them, set high standards for art writing and reinforced his position as a close companion to numerous prominent figures in art in Slovenia. On the twentieth anniversary of his death, the question is thus raised: Where do his traces lead?
The one-day conference will trace his work in various directions and on two levels. The first stems directly from Zabel’s practice, developing its dimensions of (self-)reflection in relation to the challenges of our time. The presentations will look at how Zabel’s thinking, in particular about the relations between art, the art system, and the broader sociopolitical context, (may) help us tackle the Gordian knots of these relations today. This first part of the conference is in English.
The second part traces Zabel’s dedication to probing the developments in art as they happened. To bring to the fore some of the salient points in his investigations, the common thread of this part of the conference is returning to the medium. Here we consider what Austrian artist and new-media theorist Peter Weibel called Zabel’s “media justice,” i.e., Zabel’s genuine interest in highly diverse artistic practices in terms of the medium. The papers look at how artistic media are conceptualized today, and how theory might address the renewed emphasis artistic practices give to specific media solutions. As the main focus is on the situation in Slovenia, this part of the conference is in Slovenian.
Timetable
9.30–10.00: Arrival, coffee
10.00–10.15: Introductory remarks by the director of Moderna galerija Martina Vovk, the Programme manager of the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory Urška Jurman and the Moderna galerija's curator Vladimir Vidmar
1. del: Tracing Zabel Today
10.15–10.45: Charles Esche, Some thoughts on how to read Igor Zabel in 2025
10.45–11.15: Hana Ostan-Ožbolt-Haas: Between Rupture and Continuity: Revisiting the Curatorial and Theoretical Legacy of Igor Zabel in a Time of Polycrises
11.15–11.45: Christophe Barbeau, The Peripheral, Ephemeral, Accidental, and Arbitrary
11.45–12.30: Discussion (moderated by Urška Jurman)
12.30–14.00: Lunch break
2. del: Return to the Medium?
14.00–14.30: Marko Jenko, A Matter of Support
14.30–15.00: Kaja Kraner, Transitivity, Protocol, and Atmosphere: Some Points on Contemporary Slovenian Visual Art
15.00–15.30: Maks Valenčič, Subjectifying medium in theory-fiction
15.30–16.15: Discussion (moderated by Vladimir Vidmar)
Participants' biographies
Charles Esche is a curator and writer. He is an advisor at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht and professor of contemporary art and curating at University of the Arts, London. From 2004–2024, he was director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. He has co-curated international biennales in Korea, Palestine, Turkey, Brazil and Indonesia. His latest book publications are The Museum is Multiple (Van Abbemuseum, 2024) and Art and Its Worlds (Afterall and Koenig Press, 2021). He is writing a book on Demodern Thinking with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti to be published by Duke University Press in 2027. He received the 2012 Princess Margriet Award and the 2014 CCS Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence.
Hana Ostan-Ožbolt-Haas is an independent curator and writer. Her recent curatorial projects include exhibitions at Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg), Sophie Tappeiner (Vienna), Lombardi–Kargl as part of curated by (Vienna), HOW Art Museum (Shanghai) and Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). In 2023, she held a guest professorship at die Angewandte, University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she is also pursuing her doctoral studies. Between 2019 and 2023, she served as director of the Ulay Foundation. She is a regular contributor to Artforum and Frieze. Born in Ljubljana, she lives and works in Vienna.
Christophe Barbeau is a curator and artist based in Toronto, Canada. He completed the Master of Visual Studies, Curatorial Studies, at the University of Toronto, during which his research looked at the specific concept of »authorship« relating to the position of curator. Barbeau’s exhibitions and i am the curator of this show1 (2018), Art Museum University of Toronto, and Qu’avons-nous fait? [...] (2019), Toronto aimed at deconstructing the conventional authorities of the curator and uncovering the political challenges that this figure is facing. His current research concerns an historical look at a specific network of artists, curators, and ideas from Slovenia and what was known as Eastern Europe during the 1990s and the 2000s, taking the form of an apartment exhibition series entitled Kustosova delovna soba (The Curator’s Room) (2021–).
Marko Jenko, PhD, studied Art History and French at the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Arts), where he also worked as a postgraduate researcher at the Department of Art History. From 2010 to 2022, he served as senior curator of 20th-century art at Slovenia’s national Museum of Modern Art (Moderna galerija) in Ljubljana. Since 2023, he has been a curator of modern and contemporary art at Muzej Lah in Bled, Slovenia. His theoretical work primarily focuses on issues related to art, art history, Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and philosophy. He has translated into Slovenian works by Gérard Wajcman, Jacques Lacan, Colette Soler, Jacques Rancière, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Starobinski, David Freedberg, Daniel Arasse, Monique David-Ménard, and others.
Kaja Kraner is an assistant professor at the Department of Theoretical Sciences at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, and a researcher at the Research Institute of the Ljubljana Fine Art and Design Academy. Between 2015 and 2019, she was a member of the editorial board of the journal for criticism and theory of contemporary art ŠUM, and since 2025, she has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal for the Critique of Science. In 2021, she published the scientific monograph Chronopolitics of Art: Changes in Aesthetic Education from Modern to Contemporary Art with Krtina publishing.
Maks Valenčič is a media theorist and philosopher. He is a researcher at The New Centre for Research & Practice as well as an editor at Razpotja and ŠUM, a journal for contemporary art and theory-fiction. At the moment, his research is focused on psychotic accelerationism, a project he began with the eponymous article published in ŠUM #20. In addition, he is a member of the GIA collective and host of the podcast series Technologos, where he and his guests map the implications of the emerging technological civilisation.
