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

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is the roofing institution for activities of the internationally renowned Slovene artist Tadej Pogačar and adherents of him. Nowadays it runs two independent spaces in Ljubljana: the P74 Centre and Gallery and the Kapsula Gallery. It is the holder and the organizer of the OHO Group Award. Beside that it is lately conspicuously focused on the artist books with the aim not only to produce, present, dispose and to sell them (international art fairs, in both exhibiting spaces, and per internet), but it also forms the Collection of the artist book of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute. Last but not least, the Institute is the ground for the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA) – Pogačar´s variegated and rich art production, which core is internationally known under the method called the new parasitism.

History

The historical base for the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute was the series of Tadej Pogačar´s art projects entitled the Museum of Contemporary Art realized in the beginning of 1990s, what was in 1993 renamed and established as official institution named the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA). Since then many projects were accomplished and further brunches of the Institute were formed: in 1999 was opened the P74 Centre and Gallery at Prušnikova 74 in Ljubljana Šentvid, on the periphery of the Slovene capital. To bring the gallery activities in many senses closer to the public and with the intention to be the player of the (international) art market the Kapsula Gallery was opened in 2008. More about both galleries read singular articles.

PCMA

PMCA became renowned for 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 functions as a virtual institution which exists without its own space and employees, but rather merely settles into territories, locations and networks and feeds off the juices of institutions and operates according to the principles of new parasitism. Its operation is so oriented into the analysis and deconstruction of the symbolic centres of power and the search for parallel models of cultural, economic and social operation. The PCMA establishes inter-specific relations with institutions and social groups in order to enforce changes in the operation with the analysis of relations and actions within the systems. In recent collaborative projects PMCA deals with research and analysis of alternative urban strategies, parallel economy and human trafficking in selected urban areas.

Numerous interventions into the other museum collections followed, including collection of Museum of Modern Art; Tretjak’s African Collection at Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts, Slovenj Gradec; the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary History Ljubljana; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Naturmeuseum, Rotterdam; Mucsarnok, Budapest; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin.

The PMCA received wide media attention and fame with the organisation of the 1st World Congress of Sex Workers at the 49th Venice Biennale and of New Parasitism at the Padiglione dei Sex Worker in Giardini. It has cooperated on a number of international manifestations on the Tirana Biennale (2005), International Biennale of Contemporary Art Prague (2005), São Paulo Art Biennial (2006), International Istanbul Biennial (2007), and the Biennial of the Canary Islands (2009).

One of the most echoed project of the PMCA was Kings of the Street (1995), also one of the first artistic street actions with Ljubljana’s homeless people, as well the on-going collaborative transdisciplinary project CODE:RED (1999/2000-2010).

Beside six thematic editions of the review Journal for Anthropology and New Parasitism, two editions of the thematic newspaper Sex Worker, the PMCA published in 2007 the most comprehensive survey to date of the work of PMCA as a book entitled The Best Is Yet to Come. It includes essays of Zdenka Badovinac, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Miško Šuvaković, and Igor Zabel that discuss the beginning of the PMCA, strategies of parasitism and its historical and cultural significance, and situate the practice within the local and international context. The book is distinguished by opulent image documentation, divided on chapters of early actions, the major projects carried out between 1994 and 2005, concluding with the look at the PMCA recent projects in the time or still (some) not being presented to the public.

In January 2009 on the occasion of 15 anniversary of the PMCA, the P74 Centre and Gallery featured the exhibition This is not America – 15 Years of P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art, with the summit of the discussion about the museum with Charles Esche, curator, writer, director of the Van Abbemuseum (Eidhoven, NL) as a guest. The exhibition clearly showed, how in the decade and half the PMCA created, organised and coordinated numerous events, actions, public interventions, performances, exhibitions, projections, round tables, and how it has been a "guest" of museum collections, galleries, schools, universities, personal homes, public spaces, streets.

Call for applications of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute

Beside the open call for applications for the OHO Group Award addressed on the Slovene young artist under the age of 35, which the Institute organize in the co-operation with the Foundation for a Civil Society from New York, the Institute invite annually also local and international artists expressing them in formats of the artist book and video.

Call for applications of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute: short video

Since 2008 the Institute is inviting in the begging of the year (dead line for 2010: March 15th) with the public call for applications artists creating 5 minutes long video. Since 2010 the call for proposals addresses beside local artists also the international videasts. Another novelty is thematic focus. The first thematic focused edition exposing the notion of the lifestyle (Simple Living) with the aim of reach the notion of simpleness. 12 by the jury selected art works will be featured in the Jakopič Gallery in the autumn 2010 within the international multimedia festival BLIND DATE, which will be accompanied with the publication.

Call for entries of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute: short video

Since 2008 the Institute is inviting in the begging of the year (dead line for 2010: March 15th) with the public call for entries artists creating 5 minutes long video. Since 2010 the call for proposals addresses beside local artists also the international videasts. Another novelty is thematic focus. The first thematic focused edition exposing the notion of the lifestyle (Simple Living) with the aim of reach the notion of simpleness. 12 by the jury selected art works will be featured in the Jakopič Gallery in the autumn 2010 within the international multimedia festival BLIND DATE, which will be accompanied with the publication.

Call for entries of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute: artist books

Since 2004 the PMCA is systematical supporting and popularizing the production of artist books and artist editions of national and international authors. The call for entries is usually published annual in the second part of the year, out of which the jury (each year consists out of new members) chooses on the base of the most interesting proposal/concept an artist, who can with the assistance of the Institute publish her/his artist book. Within this programme the Institute published artist books of Andrejka Čufer, Matej Stupica, Jure Engelsberger, Mladen Stilinović, Zora Stančić, Dejan Habicht, Tadej Pogačar, Boštjan Pucelj, Vlado Martek, Jaka Železnikar, Andreja Džakušič with the group.

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute Collection of the artist book

Above mention artist books constitute the core of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute Collection of the artist book. In last years the Institute acquired by the exchange or the purchase more than 170 artist books of national and international authors, which are occasionally featured within events prepared by the Institute and its exhibiting spaces.

Since 2007 the PMCA prepares regularly seminars about artist books, where many (inter)national authors offered their theoretical or practical views on the topic of artist books, what is usually followed by the open discussions. In 2007 Croatian artist Vlado Martek gave the workshop entitled The artist book as the aspect of the activism.In the same year two further seminars were held by the British artist, author and publisher Anthony Auerbach and Slovene artists Marko Pogačnik, also the member of the avant-garde group OHO, active in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s, talking about the theme of books as creative tools, where he presented also the concept of the edition OHO (1965-1968).

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute and the international art fairs of artist books

The Institute presents and sells artists books by the artist being represented not just as the part of the programme of their space Kapsula Gallery and per internet, since 2009 it presents and sell the selected authors also on the international art fairs as on the Miss Read in the Kunstwerke Berlin and by Printed Matter organised NY Art Book Fair in P.S.1, Centre of contemporary arts in Queens. The Institute represent artists as Mladen Stropnik, Dejan Habicht, Tanja Lažetić, Balint Szombathy, Tadej Pogačar, Vlado Martek, Boštjan Pucelj, Jacob Fabricius, Mladen Stilinović, Zora Stančić, etc.

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