KIBLA Portal

Contact

KIBLA PORTAL

Valvasorjeva 40, SI-2000 Maribor

http://www.kibla.org

kibla@kibla.org

Managed byKIBLA Multimedia Centre

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KIBLA Portal is a multifunctional exhibition and event venue for contemporary artistic practices, stationed in the city of Maribor. It is handling a variety of media, from computer and inter-media arts to paintings and sculptures, and is sometimes also used for electronic music performances, conferences and the like. It operates as a dislocated premise of the KIBLA Multimedia Centre (MMC KIBLA), an institution that works on confluences of research, culture, technology, arts and sciences.

Though there is another similar gallery space operating under MMC KIBLA, called KiBela Art Space, the KIBLA Portal is very special in its basic – spatial – feature. It is very big. It covers a space of about 2000 square meters and as such both enables and demands specific types of projects.

Background

The venue is located at the premises of the Maribor textile factory MTT, which had been closed in the 90s and remained unused until its current transformation. Its vast grounds were opened during the time when Maribor was the European Capital of Culture 2012 and it was first initiated in November 2012 with Soft Control: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious – an international art exhibition with a conference, workshops and lectures.

Programme

The KIBLA Portal has put on display a very diverse set of works, ideas and performances, and most of its exhibition projects have a distinctively international character and an interdisciplinary approach.

For example, the aforementioned Soft Control was a wide-ranging event that dealt with the discourses and contexts of technology, arts and contemporary techno-culture. The display titled Materiality in the Portal presented its topic – the concept of materiality – through a diverse set of works that featured side by side the established canon of Slovenian and international art as well as the works of young and promising authors - and also some almost forgotten and overlooked artists. Another international exhibition dealt with the First World War and was called Memory of Violence – Dreams of the Future 1914 -18.

RAZSTAVA MATERIALNOST V KIBLA PORTALU by KID KIBLA on YouTube

An interesting project was done in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor. A group of its students was invited – together with some already established artists – to use the medium of drawing and present new works made especially for the exhibition and developed for this specific venue.

Invited artists and curators

Some of the curators involved in the KIBLA Portal were Dmitry Bulatov, Sanja Kojić Mladenov, Petra Varl, Žiga Dobnikar and Aleksandra Kostič. The latter is among other things also the director of KIBLA Multimedia Centre.

One would be hard pressed to come up with a representative list of artists, as the Portal's concept and its capacities dictate for the place to feature numerous works. Yet, some of the authors from abroad whose works were featured here are Marina Abramović (RS/US), Stelarc (AU), Suzanne Dikker (NL), Matthias Oostrik (NL), Jimmy Loizeau (UK), Brandon Ballengee (US), Paul Smith (UK), David Bowen (US), Andrew Gracie (UK/ES), Kuda begut sobaki (RU), Bill Vorn (CA), Lana Čmajčanin (BiH), Boris Pramatarov (BG), Marcel Mališ (SK), Bogdan Girbovan (RO), Anca Benera (RO), Arnold Estefan (RO), Visualizing Palestine (LB), Vessna Perunovich (RS-CA), Magali Sanheira (FR), ábor Fülöp (HU), Libuše Jarcovjáková (CZ), Max Sudhues (DE), Magda Tothova (SK), Chto Delat (RU), María Elínardóttir (IS), Oliver Pietsch (DE) and Goran Tomčić (HR/USA).

Of the artists from Slovenia, a very incomplete list would include Nataša Berk, Maja Hodošček, Nika Autor, Mark Požlep, Ervin Potočnik, Borut Peterlin, Mojca Oblak, Mina Fina, Laibach, Marko Jakše, Mitja Ficko, Tadej Vindiš, Damijan Kracina, Vlado Repnik and Matija Bobičić.

Festivals and other events at KIBLA Portal

Since 2013, the Maribor Electronic Destination International Festival (MED) takes place at Portal, as does the KIBLIX Festival. In 2013 and 2015, respectively, the KIBLIX Festival merged its efforts with the International Festival of Computer Arts (IFCA) and staged a joint festival venture.

KIBLIX has, among many others, brought here works and performances by Angelo Vermeulen, Elisabeth Schimana, William Myers, Ghislaine Boddington, Servando Barreiro, Electric Indigo and Random Logic. Some of the musicians presented at MED were Andy Stott, Cut Hands, Cut Hands, Wolf Müller and Dodecahedragraph.

MFRU-KIBLIX2013 by KID KIBLA on YouTube

International cooperation

The Soft Control project was probably the most internationally elaborate project. Some of the participating institutions were Ars Electronica, Impakt (NL), MediaArtLab (RU), National Centre for Contemporary Arts – Kaliningrad Branch (RU), Prometheus (RU), Experiments in Art and Technology – E.A.T., Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto (PT), Centre for new media culture RIXC (LV), International Centre for Art and New Technologies CIANT (CZ), Hangar, Centre for research and production for the visual arts (ES), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka (HR), Dom omladine Beograd (SR), O3ONE (SR), and possibly some others as well. The Slovenian partnerships among others featured the Faculty of Medicine and the Scientific Research Centre (ZRC SAZU), Slovene Academy of Science and Arts.

Some other partners in Portal's exhibitions were the WYSPA Institute of Art (PL), VESSEL (IT), Instituto Polytechnico de Tomar (PT), The French Institute in Serbia and the Goethe-Institute in Belgrade and the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (SR).

See also

• KIBLA Multimedia Centre
• KiBela Art Space
• KIBLIX Festival
• International Festival of Computer Arts (IFCA)
• Maribor Electronic Destination International Festival

External links

• KIBLA Portal website
• Soft Control project, 2012
• Mundus Vadit Retro
• MFRU-KIBLIX Festival 2015