IRWIN is the visual art group of the broader retro-avant-garde collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), which brought together several artistic groups – the multimedia group Laibach, IRWIN, the theater group Sisters of Scipio Nasica Theater (and its successors, first Cosmokinetic Theater Rdeči pilot and later Cosmokinetic Cabinet Noordung), the design group New Collectivism, and others. NSK formed in the 1980s, at a time of deep political and economic crisis in Yugoslavia that eventually led to its breakup in the early 1990s and the founding of new, independent states, including Slovenia.
This historical context has played a crucial role in IRWIN’s artistic practice, in particular as regards its Capital installation series. Made between 1987 and 2008, these works combine hunting trophies and artworks by the group. The latter were produced according to the so-called retro-principle, which entails appropriating symbols and motifs from history, the art tradition, and IRWIN’s own visual languages, which often leads to a blending of clashing elements.
Conceptually underpinning the works is the idea of art as a trophy of different political and economic systems. By joining artworks and hunting trophies, IRWIN underscores the issue of art being in the service of both ideology and capital. During the period of the transition from socialism to capitalism, the group critically questioned the status of the art of the former socialist countries in the new market-oriented system. The group’s stance toward the art market has remained ambiguous: on the one hand, it sees it as a tool of the hegemony of Western capitalism, and on the other, as the only way for the art of Eastern Europe to establish itself on the international art scene.
Capital is an installation that changes in its various iterations with the incorporation of different animals and different artworks, but its central idea remains the same. Its individual elements carry their own symbolism and meanings independently of the installation as a whole, raising further questions about the context and function of art in the modern world.
