The initial exhibition The Present and Presence was installed on the occasion of the opening of the new Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova building on 26 November 2011. Repetition 1 is the first variation of the exhibition on the besis of the concept of repetition as a tool to expand the format of a permanent exhibition showing yet another dimension of time which is added to the initial collection of times. We present a selection of works from the Arteast 2000+ collection and the Moderna galerija national collection and additional selection of five special projects (Archive Body and the East, Archive Bosna, Performance Archive, NETRAF: Portable Intelligence Increase Museum, Arhiv in the making).

Marina Abramović, Jurij / Yury Albert, Tamás St.Auby, Nika Autor, Mirosłav Bałka, Jože Barši, Jerzy Bereś, Viktor Bernik, Borghesia, Vuk Ćosić, Danica Dakić, Vlasta Delimar, Braco Dimitrijević, Goran Djordjević, Nuša & Srečo Dragan, Društvo za domače raziskave / Domestic Research Society, Stano Filko, Vadim Fiškin, Gledališče sester Scipion Nasice / Scipion Nasice Sisters Theater, Bojan Gorenec, Gorgona, Tomislav Gotovac, Tomaž Gregorič, Ion Grigorescu, Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid, Dmitrij / Dmitri Gutov, Dejan Habicht, Jusuf Hadžifejzović, Tibor Hajas, Róza El-Hassan, Jenny Holzer, Jasna Hribernik & Zmago Lenárdič, Ištvan Išt Huzjan, Irwin, Sanja Iveković, Sanja Iveković & Dalibor Martinis, Janez Janša & Janez Janša, & Janez Janša, Šelja Kamerić, Sergej Kapus, Žiga Kariž, Milan Knížák, Komar & Melamid, Marko Kovačič, Ivan Kožarić (Gorgona), Zofia Kulik, KwieKulik, Laibach, Jurij / Yuri Leiderman, Kazimir Malevič / Malevich, David Maljković, Vlado Martek, Anja Medved & Nadja Velušček, Karel Miler, Jan Mlčoch, Alex Mlynarcik, Andrei Monastirsky, Paul Neagu, Novi kolektivizem / New Collectivism, OHO, Dimitry Orlac, Tanja Ostojić, Alen Ožbolt, Adrian Paci, Marko Peljhan, Amalia Perjovschi, Dan Perjovschi, Goran Petercol, Alenka Pirman, Tadej Pogačar, Marko Pogačnik (OHO), Marjetica Potrč, Dmitrij / Dmitri Prigov, Marija Mojca Pungerčar, Franc Purg, Tobias Putrih, Aleksandr / Alexander Roitburd, Vinko Rozman, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Arsen Savadov, Nedko Solakov, son:DA, Serge Spitzer, Zora Stančič, Mladen Stilinović, Tone Stojko, Alma Suljević, Tomaž Šalamun (OHO), Nebojša Šerič - Šoba, Nika Špan, Petr Štembera, Jane Štravs, Miha Štrukelj, Raša Todosijević, Slaven Tolj, Milica Tomić, Goran Trbuljak, Josip Vaništa (Gorgona), Sašo Vrabič, Konstantin Zvezdočotov / Zvezdochiotov, Želimir Žilnik, Dragan Živadinov:: Dunja Zupančič:: MihaTuršič

Curated by: Zdenka Badovinac, Bojana Piškur, Igor Španjol

The Present and Presence - Repetition 1, is being a partly changed and expanded first instalation of the exhibition The Present and Presence that opened the new Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova last November. Repetition 1 follows a special concept of repetition.

The Present and Presence exhibition is being repeated for the following reasons:

1 – Moderna galerija and its new unit, the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, have had their exhibitions program budget so drastically cut that it now hardly allows for a new exhibition and catalogue to be produced. Repeating an exhibition is thus some kind of recycling in a crisis, the revamping of an existing product. It aims to maximize the potential of the preceding exhibition, to re-examine its contents and, basically, fashion a new product. This recycling builds on the foundations of past work (including a few other exhibitions staged by the Moderna galerija), bringing to the fore – at the same time – the potential of the conditions of crisis. In our case, recycling has become the only way we can work, “ecologically” for a reason rather than under the pressures of the market, a critical reaction to the existing (local and global) conditions.

2 – We live in a time when culture and art are succumbing to the dictate of capital, which continues to drive consumers to crave forever new things. The market is flooded with content that must rapidly become obsolete to be replaced by new content; repeating what already exists is boring, and if something old does get repeated, it is done just for effect, as a fad, and not to articulate some complex relations. Our repetition, on the other hand, aims to draw critical attention to the excessively fast and superficial consumption of intellectual content and underscore the significance of rereading.

3 – Repetition is one of the fundamental features of contemporary art and of the time and place we live in. For example, the usual method of showing video art in a gallery is the video loop – repetition par excellence. Apart from this, what we are largely dealing with in contemporary art exhibitions is the documentation of a particular art process, which is in itself a kind of repetition and which can also serve as the basis for possible later repetitions. Also, one of the popular art genres today is re-enactment, in which, in most cases, artists are repeating important historic performances. International curatorial jargon is full of such words as redefine, rethink, revisit. Particularly in spaces that have recently undergone great historic change, local history is something that needs to be revisited. Everybody does this – from politicians, for whom history is an instrument in their games of power; to historians, who must constantly redefine it; to contemporary artists, who seek in it the points of trauma that are important for an understanding of their own practices.

4 – Repetition is one of the crucial principles by which history is created. There is far too little emphasis placed on the key role repetition plays in the construction of narratives. As Hal Foster has noted, no work becomes historic at the moment of its creation but only later, through the “retroactive effect of countless artistic responses and critical readings”. In order for this kind of repetition to even be possible, a developed art system must exist, which enables continual reference to art practices through research, publications, collections, and, not least of all, the art market. Today, for spaces outside the dominant system, it is important to analyze the traumas of local histories in this light as well.

5 – Repetition is driven by trauma, the same kind of trauma that led Moderna galerija to found, in 2000, its collection Arteast 2000+, now one of the conceptual cornerstones of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. Here our interest rests principally with two traumas associated with the territory of Eastern European art: the trauma of the absence of a developed art system and the trauma of the unrealized emancipatory ideals of communism. Many of the key thinkers who shaped today’s understanding of the world, from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Freud to Lacan and Deleuze, have seen the repeating of some unrealized past potential as a way for the subject to be free. Repetition, as Mladen Dolar writes, “concerns some piece of the past which troubles us and drives us to act it out (Agieren, says Freud), to re-enact it, to perform it.”