Modern art museum to zoom in on photography, Middle East art, gentrification

The museum will host the 10th Triennial of Contemporary Art U3 between June and November in what will be its latest subjective reflection on the current situation in Slovenian contemporary art. The 10th edition has been curated by Tevž Logar.

In another exhibition contemporary Slovenian photography will be showcased in dialogue with selected pieces by older generations of Slovenian photographers.

The exhibition, which will be held at the end of the year, will be based on the relation between photography and space and the exploration and presentation of conceptually different treatments of space through the lens of photographers, treatments that either represent or construct space, the museum told the STA.

It also plans to put on an exhibition dedicated to Middle East art. The show Constellations of Multiple Wishes: Eastbound, which is expected in spring, is an offshoot of the museum's exhibition series Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned, which shed new light on the history of the Non-Aligned Movement and its cultural and artistic practices.

Based mainly on works by Middle East artists, Constellations of Multiple Wishes: Eastbound was first shown in London in 2022.

Its latest version in Ljubljana will include additional works by Palestinian artists. The group exhibition will be dedicated to intertwined recent histories of "multiple Easts", from the origins of the Non-Aligned Movement to present time.

In autumn, the museum will put on an exhibition on gentrification and public spaces to spotlight current issues in this area, such as the brutal shrinking of public spaces carried out under ideological disguise.

Furthermore, there will be a series of performances and installations by artists joined under the VN arts platform, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and the museum will also continue its series of exhibitions by young artists.

Another highlight of this year will be Slovenia's appearance at the 60th Venice Biennale, which will be held between 20 April and 24 November.

Organised by the museum, the Slovenian project at the upcoming international art exhibition features conceptual artist Nika Špan and curator Vladimir Vidmar. It "inscribes itself in the historical context of Venice as a foreign, unknown and unexpected element", the museum said earlier.

Visitors still have a chance to see its exhibition about a feminist take on Slovenian visual art, which opened last year. The exhibition For Your Pleasure is on until 14 April. Moreover, there is one until May dedicated to visual artist Aleksandra Vajd.