Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory

Contact

Društvo Igor Zabel za kulturo in teorijo

Celovška 161, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://www.igorzabel.org

info@igorzabel.org

Founded byMateja Kos Zabel, Bojan Zabel

Events abroad

Past Events

• 7 Mar 2024

  Austria Vienna Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz

  
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  A presentation of author Nkule Mabaso and her book, "Climate: Our Right to Breathe". This event is part of the Ecologies of Care Seminar convened and organized by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, and Kunsthalle Wien; supported by: ERSTE Foundation.

  at the Ecologies of Care

  
  

  
  

• 7 Mar 2024

  Austria Vienna Café Merkur

  
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  The Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at the University of Vienna and the Research Platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe" invite to their regular Transformative Salon, this time to discuss the book "Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia" with editors and authors Sanja Horvatinčić and Beti Žerovc, with Jelena Đureinović (RECET) moderating the event. The book was published by Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and Archive Books.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 5 Mar 2024

  Austria Vienna Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz

  
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  A projection of "The Magic Mountain", a film about asbestos mining in the Piemont region of Italy, and a sit-down with the director Micol Roubini and the curator Gabi Scardi. This event is part of the Ecologies of Care Seminar convened and organized by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, and Kunsthalle Wien; supported by: ERSTE Foundation.

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• 19 Oct 2019

  Serbia Belgrade Museum of Contemporary Art

  
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  The screening of the documentary The Curator's Room - Igor Zabel: How to Make Art Visible, directed by Damjan Kozole and produced by Vertigo, Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory and Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenia),

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 26 Sep 2019

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  29 Sep 2019

  Austria Vienna Marx Halle

  
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  The exhibition NSK State in Time (Slovenian art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK)), curated and presented by Tevž Logar, in the Focus section, supported by the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory; P74 Centre and Gallery presenting Polonca Lovšin and Uroš Potočnik; Photon Gallery presenting Peter Koštrun and Vanja Bučan; Ravnikar Gallery Space presenting Nina Čelhar, Simon Kocjančič and Maja Babič Košir; and Galerija Fotografija presenting Andrej Lamut, Boris Gaberščik and Tilyen Mucik, supported by the Slovenian Culture and Information Centre, Vienna (SKICA),

  at the Viennacontemporary International Art Fair

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• 30 Nov 2017

  United Kingdom London Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

  
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  A panel discussion Decolonising the Mind, Provincialising the West, attended by Urša Jurman, presenting the publication Extending the Dialogue published by (Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory),

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 24 Jun 2017

  Germany Berlin Archive Kabinett

  
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  A presentation of the art history book Extending the Dialogue, published by the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, with Ekaterina Degot, Antonia Majaća, Christiane Erharter and Urška Jurman

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 4 Jun 2017

  Estonia Tallinn Noblessneri sadamalinnak

  
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  Beti Žerovc presents her publication When Attitudes Become the Norm: the contemporary curator and institutional art, published by the Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, hosted by EKA Photograafia

  
  

  
  

  
  

• 30 Mar 2017

  Austria Vienna Erste Campus

  
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  The book launch of Extending the Dialogue edited by Urška Jurman (Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory), supported by the Slovenian Culture and Information Centre, Vienna (SKICA), Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia Vienna,

  
  

  
  

  
  

Show more

The Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory was founded in February 2008 by Mateja Kos Zabel, Bojan Zabel, and the ERSTE Foundation.

The primary aim of the association, based in Ljubljana, was to establish an international award for culture and theory dedicated to the memory of Igor Zabel (1958–2005). The association seeks to highlight the importance and ongoing influence of Zabel's work, to promote knowledge-sharing and networking in contemporary visual arts and culture and to encourage cultural dialogue in the Central and South Eastern European region and beyond. In 2010 it organised its first international symposium Contemporary Art Exhibition as an Artwork, Curator as an Artist in the Museum of Modern Art.

Background

Igor Zabel was a Slovene curator, writer and cultural theorist who, during his entire life, was actively involved in many fields of theory and culture – as a philosopher, author, essayist, modern and contemporary art curator, literary and art critic, translator, and model for new generations of curators and critics of contemporary art. As a curator and writer, he tirelessly called for the profound exploration of those political, social and cultural undercurrents that had the potential to give us a better understanding of the post-communist world of today.

From 1984 to 1986 he worked as free-lance writer and since 1986 as curator of Moderna galerija (Museum of Modern Art). In his work as curator he organised numerous exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art presenting artists from Slovenia and abroad. From 1998 to 2000 he was coordinator of Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana. In 2003 he curated the show Individual Systems as part of the 50th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennial.

Zabel also published two books of essays on contemporary art and a number of essays and articles in catalogues and magazines. He was editor of the magazine of the Museum of Modern Art M’ars and co-editor of the journal of contemporary curatorship MJ Manifesta Journal.

Publishing

In November 2012 Contemporary Art Theory, a comprehensive selection of Igor Zabel’s writings in the English language, was published by JRP Ringier in co-edition with Les presses du réel and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, ERSTE Foundation and Moderna galerija, Ljubljana. Zabel’s texts tackle modern and contemporary art from Socialist Realism and Conceptual Art to Post-Modernism and Contextual Art, particularly in Slovenia and Eastern Europe, and thus provide also insight into Zabel’s curatorial strategies. The book is edited by Igor Španjol and divided into four chapters: East-West and Between, Strategies and Spaces of Art, Ad Personam (individual artists and thematic phenomena) and Extras (selected columns on arts and culture).

See also

• Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory

External links

• Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory website

• Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory on Facebook
• Information on the international symposium on The Changing Statuses of the Exhibition and the Curator in the Field of Contemporary Art

Igor Zabel

• Igor Zabel: Contemporary Art Theory publication info
• Presentation of the book Continuing Dialogues. A Tribute to Igor Zabel (in English)
• Frieze Foundation about Igor Zabel
• In Erinnerung an Igor Zabel 1958—2005 by Mária Hlavajová (in German)
• Obituary: Igor Zabel (1958–2005) by Henry Meyric Hughes on the AICA website