P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is an umbrella organisation for the activities of the internationally renowned Slovene artist Tadej Pogačar, used both for his varied and rich art productions, as well as for his many institutional endeavours – the P74 Centre and Gallery and the Kapsula Gallery bookshop/project space, the annually presented OHO Group Award, the Sound Explicit Festival and the The International Biennial of Short Video.

Having recently turned its focus to artists' books – with the aim to produce, present, distribute and sell them – the organisation has also created the Artist's Book Collection of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute. Since 2010 it runs the biennial Blind Date Convention, Festival of the Artist’s Book.

TADEJ POGAČAR & the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.Museum of Contemporary Art by SODOBNA UMETNOST / CONTEMPORARY ART on YouTube

Background

The historical base for the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute was Tadej Pogačar's series of art projects that took place in the beginning of the 1990s, entitled the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1993, this was turned into an actual institution and was renamed as the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA).

Since then, a number of further branches of the institute have been formed. First one among them was the P74 Centre and Gallery, opened in 1991 in Šentvid, a somewhat peripheral neighbourhood of Ljubljana. Later, in 2008 – with the intention to be more actively present on the (international) art market and to bring the gallery's activities closer to the public – the Kapsula Gallery bookshop/project space was set up in an underground shopping arcade in the Ljubljana centre. In February 2012 both galleries moved to the Šiška Cultural Quarter.

Tadej Pogačnik

Tadej Pogačar exhibited his work at numerous renowned galleries and museums around the world – the MUMOK in Vienna, the San Francisco Art Institute, the NGBK in Berlin, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Central House of Artists in Moscow, and the Museo de Arte Carillo Gil in Mexico City.

In 2014 a major retrospective exhibition Tadej Pogačar & the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art: Hills and Valleys and Mineral Resources was set up by the Moderna galerija (MG) in Ljubljana, and was later also shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb.

PMCA

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA) functions as a virtual institution which exists without its own space – it rather settles into territories and networks of other institutions, operating according to the principles of new parasitism. Its operations are geared towards analysing and deconstructing the symbolic centres of power. Very notable acts in this vein were the reworking of the logotype of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the theft of the introductory speech of the director of the Guggenheim from its homepage.

PMCA Projects and exhibitions

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. realised numerous interventions into collections of other museums, including the collection of Ljubljana's Museum of Modern Art; Tretjak’s African Collection at Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts; the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Naturmeuseum, Rotterdam; Műcsarnok, Budapest; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin; the Limerick City Gallery, Limerick; and the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig.

One of the more widely echoed projects of the PMCA was Kings of the Street (1995), at that time one of the first artistic street actions that actively involved the homeless people of Ljubljana. Even more resounding was the collaborative trans-disciplinary project CODE:RED (1999–2010), for which Pogačar was awarded the Rihard Jakopič Award in 2009 and about which a book was published in 2010. It comprehensively dealt with the phenomena of sex workers, and PMCA received international media attention with its 1st World Congress of Sex Workers at the 49th Venice Biennale and New Parasitism at the Padiglione dei Sex Worker in Giardini. It was also shown at a number of international events like the Manifesta 1 in Rotterdam (1996) and at the biennials in São Paulo, Venice, Istanbul, Prague, and Tirana.

In its more recent collaborative projects PMCA has also delved into artistic research and analysis of topics such as alternative urban strategies, parallel economies, and human trafficking.

PMCA publications

Among the numerous PMCA publications, one can mention 6 thematic editions of the Journal for Anthropology and New Parasitism, 2 editions of the thematic newspaper Sex Worker, and the 2007 overview about the work of PMCA, titled The Best is Yet to Come. It includes essays by Zdenka Badovinac, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Miško Šuvaković and Igor Zabel discussing the beginning of the PMCA, its strategies of parasitism and its historical and cultural significance, and situating the practice within the local and international context.

Open calls for artists

Foremost of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.'s open calls is the one for the OHO Group Award, which is annually awarded to a young Slovene artist under the age of 35. The institute organises it in cooperation with the Foundation for a Civil Society from New York, and sends the winners there for a two-month residency.

Additionally, the institute also regularly invites local and international artists to express themselves by artist's books, video pieces or various new media formats. Since 2008 the institute also makes a public call for artists to create short, 5-minute videos, and organises the International Biennial of Short Video.

Artists' books

As of 2004 the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute started to systematically support and popularise the production of artists' books and artist editions of both national and international authors. It has published the artists' books of many Slovene authors, among them Andrejka Čufer, Matej Stupica, Jure Engelsberger, Zora Stančić, Dejan Habicht, Tadej Pogačar, Jaka Železnikar, Andreja Džakušič, Mina Fina, Tanja Lažetič, Mladen Stropnik, Petra Varl, as well as by internationally acclaimed artists such as Mladen Stilinović, Dalibor Martinis, Sanja Iveković, Vlado Martek, Lala Raščić, Balint Szombathy and Dan Perjovschi.

Since 2009 the institute presents and sells artists' books at international art fairs such as the Miss Read in the Kunstwerke Berlin, NY Art Book Fair in P.S.1, Centre of Contemporary Arts, and at fairs in Los Angeles, Paris and Brussels. Some of the books have been included in the artists' books collections of eminent institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MoMA in New York, the Museum of Modern Art Weserburg, the South End University in London and the CNEAI Paris. They can also be purchased in specialised bookshops such as Boekie.Woekie (Amsterdam), Pro-qm and Motto (Berlin), Printed Matter (New York), Castilo-Coralles and Florence Loewy (Paris).

The aforementioned artists' books constitute the core of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute collection. Yet, since 2005 the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute has also acquired (by exchange or purchase) more than 170 other artists' books from all around. The books are occasionally featured at events prepared by P74 and Kapsula.

Since 2007 the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute organised several seminars about artists' books, during which many authors had offered their theoretical or practical views on the topic. Among these authors were the Croatian artist Vlado Martek, the British artist and publisher Anthony Auerbach, and the Slovene artist Marko Pogačnik, a member of the avant-garde group OHO in which he established the concept of the OHO editions (1965–1968).

Sound Explicit

In 2003 the institute introduced a new series of music events, first held at the P74 Centre and Gallery premises. As of 2011 the Sound Explicit Festival has moved to the Jakopič Gallery, where it takes place each September or October. The festival is dedicated to experimental and improvised music by Slovene artists, though it is occasionally also featuring international guests.

External links