“Troika”: release and book launch at MSUM, Ljubljana

Link Editions is proud to announce the release of “Troika”, a catalogue of the recent work of Janez Janša, Janez Janša, and Janez Janša, edited by Domenico Quaranta. Co-published by Link Editions and Aksioma, the book will be presented on January 10, 2014 at the MSUM / Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana, in the frame of a series of lectures scheduled for the exhibition Stopover 1:1, curated by Zdenka Badovinac; and is already available in Print on Demand on Lulu.com, and for free download on Lulu.com, Issuu.com and Linkartcenter.eu.

 

 

In summer 2007 three artists from Slovenia legally changed their names to “Janez Janša”. This life event heralded a break in their artistic practice, which evolved into one of the most radical explorations of life in the age of biopolitics. Featuring a text by Domenico Quaranta, this book documents and discusses their recent work, a continuum that is generated both by companies and institutions as a reaction to their life events, and by isolating and documenting specific episodes in their lives. The artists use ID cards, passports and bank cards to challenge the very concepts of “art” and “artwork”. Their practice takes on the financial and bureaucratic systems that endeavour to regulate our lives, and undermines the art establishment’s attempt to determine and safeguard the value of artworks, while actively seeking the complicity of both sets of institutions.

 

 

On the occasion of this collaboration with Aksioma, Link Editions is also republishing the seminal catalogue RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, first published in 2009 by FPEditions on the occasion of the exhibition with the same name, produced by Aksioma and toured through four locations between 2009 and 2010. The new version also includes a presentation of the work In the Long Run (2010), by the Italian group IOCOSE, that joined the show in its latest presentation and was not featured in the 2009 catalogue.

 

Through the texts of critics, theorists and artists such as Jennifer Allen, Antonio Caronia, Rod Dickinson, Domenico Quaranta and Jan Verwoert, and through works by Lucas Bambozzi, Vaginal Davis, IOCOSE, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG) and SilentCell Network, the book seeks to explore the relationship between the historical, social and linguistic aspects of re-enactment, and the meaning of this practice, against the background of the history of performance and the increasing mediation of life.

 

Troika is produced by Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana. Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.

 

Domenico Quaranta (ed.), Troika, Link Editions + Aksioma, Brescia 2014. 80 pp, English, color, ISBN 9781291665468. More info & Download: http://editions.linkartcenter.eu/. Slovenian version available

 

Antonio Caronia, Janez Janša, Domenico Quaranta (eds.), RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, LINK Editions, Brescia 2014. 142 pp, color, ISBN 9781291650945. More info & Download: http://editions.linkartcenter.eu/.

 

Book presentation:

MSUM / Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova
Maistrova 3 – Ljubljana, Slovenia
January 10, 2014, 6 PM