KiBela Art Space

Jure Zadnikar's exhibition Towards the sun in the KiBela Art Space, 2008

KiBela Art Space is one of several sections of KIBLA Multimedia Centre. Since its establishment in 1996, Aleksandra Kostič, its main curator of the show room and nowadays the president of Ace Kibla, together with colleagues Peter Tomaž Dobrila, curator Maja Vuksanović and others have created a very well-defined programme of Slovene and international art – or "transnational" art, as they do not like to classify art by nationalities. The programme-oriented gallery goes beyond traditional exhibiting boundaries, it connects various visual media ventures with audio communications, telecommunications, interactive technology, even with contemporary dance and theatre – an extraordinary programme for Slovene dimensions which has brought KiBela to international success.

The famous Australian artist Stelarc claims that Kibla "is the best cyber space in the world", artist Eduardo Kac, who works at the Art Institute of Chicago, "something like this doesn't exist in United States" and Joseph Tabby, university professor and writer, "I came to visit Slovenia, because I'd heard about KIBLA."

Background

KiBela Art Space was developed within KIBLA Multimedia Centre together with KiBar (an Internet café), the Kibela.Tif graphic studio which produces KIBLA's flyers and publications, and Za:misel Bookstore. In the second half of the 1990s plans for KiBela began to take shape with the help of experience and common knowledge – in a time when the emergence of new technologies and artistic approaches had already become self-evident and necessary when planning a contemporary gallery.

Concept

"Contemporary, multimedia and intermedia related", the fundamental concept of KiBela Art Space is that of "liberating and connecting traditional and electronic art media, presenting artistic (non)messages and artist+ (ir)responsibility, integrating art with science and technology and establishing new aesthetics and an ecology of the mind."

KiBela has worked towards establishing links between alternative and established art and culture, between young and older generations, between the domestic and foreign art scene, between classical and electronic media, between art, technology and science and between different aesthetics and thinking.

Programme

In over 10 years of operation KiBela has held more then 200 social art openings, performances, presentations and other art events and developed an exclusive approach to installing art in the space: whether by content or by the use of (new) media in technically or architecturally challenging ways, KiBela's space has accommodated a wide variety of art aesthetics. Since 2004 all of KiBela's events – more than 100 – are superbly visually and textually documented on KiBela's online archive.

The gallery collaborates and presents the recent works of multimedia and visual artists following the curated programme of house and external, freelance curators. The list of artists who have been presented at KiBela reads like a who's who in contemporary art and especially, new media art. Pioneer and innovative artists who are at the forefront of new media art, whether from abroad or from Slovenia, have been exhibited alongside young and emerging artists.

KiBela is also a multi-purpose entertainment space for organising seminars, presentations, round tables, press conferences and rich cultural programmes, including exhibitions, theatre performances, video projections, concerts, literary readings, debate clubs, etc.

International cooperation

As KIBLA is extensively involved in international cooperation projects, so to KiBela Art Space participates through providing an exhibition space for presentations – such as the improvisational audio-video performance between Tengal (Manila), Marko Batista (Ljubljana), and Ana Pečar (Maribor) which took place in November 2009 as part of the project X-OP.

International Art Fairs

Since 2009 KiBela has been attending international art fairs. In July 2009 KiBela was hosted on the Art Vilnius 09 fair, the very first international art fair in the Baltic region, which happened as part of the European Capital of Culture 2009 in Lithuania. KiBela was the only participating Slovene gallery and presented two Slovene artists of the younger generation: the sculptor Boštjan Novak and the painter Jure Zadnikar. In September 2009 KiBela participated in the fifte edition of the curated Preview Berlin – the emerging art fair presenting computer controlled installation Robot Partner 0.2 – Automated Table Modification by Stefan Doepner, a German artist who lives and works in Ljubljana.

Publications

Since 1998, starting with two collections of essays by Eduardo Kac entitled Teleporting An Unknown State (1998) and Telepresence, Biotelematics and Transgenetic Arts (1999), KiBela has published more than 25 publications. Recent ones include: the catalogue Performing Pictures (2008) from Geska Helena Andersson & Robert Brečević, the catalogue AES+F: Action Half Life (2006), catalogue Sonic from Ksenija Čerče (2008), the DVD Digital commune in Maribor, the DVD with the title Zapri oči in glej (2006) from Alenka Pirman, and others.

Location and exhibition space

KiBela is on the ground floor of Narodni dom in Maribor and was renovated in January 1999 with the purpose of installing visual and other forms of art. KiBela cooperates often with other spaces and institutions and sometimes prepares site-specific projects.

Dimensions: 132m² (8.7m x 15.2m x 3.5m H) vaulted space with 6 columns, incorporating 20 linear metres of wall space; installation system: hammer-and-nail installation, sculpture pedestals; lighting: halogen lighting system; climate control: none; sales policy: sales not permitted; security: security system installed.

External links

Gallery

David Carson's Paganini of Typography, a creative workshop/exhibition in the KiBela Art Space, KIBLA Multimedia Centre, Maribor 2002

All about Lesotho new media project by Vlado G. Repnik, Robert Klančnik, Lana K. Gotvan and Stefan Doepner in the KiBela Art Space, Maribor 2006

Junction protocols exhibition by Dragan Živadinov, Dunja Zupančič and Miha Turšič, KiBela Art Space, Maribor 2007

Jure Zadnikar's exhibition Towards the sun in the KiBela Art Space, 2008

KiBela Art Space interior; Jure Zadnikar's exhibition Towards the sun, 2008