Museum Institute, who made a decisive contribution to the introduction of visual arts and contemporary dance into Slovenian performing arts in the 1990s, celebrates its 30th anniversaryIn addition, the Slovenian Theatre Institute and the Muzeum Institute co-published the book by director, producer and curator Barbara Novakovič. publication with a title Theatre as a Museum. Accompanying transparent exhibition Arhiv furiosowhich is in the Hall of the Slovenian Theatre Institute on view until June 6, 2025, covers the performance history of the Muzeum Theatre from 1994–2024.
If sculpture is the image of the living, transferred into staticity and thus into potential eternity, then this exhibition can also be seen in the light of visual stage materials that enter the exhibition space as "architecture of props". They are fragments of an event that was once alive and surrounded by dynamics, but here they are read as exhibits that act as "eternal traces" and tangible imprints of theatrical productions that have, as a whole, irretrievably passed away. The visual images and visual artefacts are parallel dramaturgies within the duration of the event. On the one hand, they are an indispensable complementary part of the whole, on the other hand, they are completely independent elements of expression, symbol and effect.
A stage event in all its performative totality and temporal absoluteness can never be revived by reconstruction, it cannot happen again – every attempt is only an approximation, a utopian resurrection. The time that bordered its context is no more. And when the “same” contextual time (whether intimate or social) is no more, the essence of the original moment also changes. There is nothing bad or tragic about this, in fact we have been taught to love this very specificity. That no performance can ever return in the same autonomous turn and that our experience of observation is (was) radically conditioned by direct participation in the event. Liveliness, presence, community, proximity and simultaneity. Each of these concepts is most precisely valued and defined, so to speak semantically conditioned, only by social time, permeated with politics and philosophy – in their broadest sense.
What does it mean, then, to look at the performative past through the perspective of objects (which ignore neither politics nor philosophy)?
What does it mean to unfold your evolution of concepts through “inanimate” materials?
It means: to create a wonderful paradox.
What was once the most "inanimate" in a performance is now the most "real" here.
The objects, structures, and stage props, which are here exempt from the original event dramaturgy and space, cannot "replace" the essence and experience of the events, but despite everything, they carry within themselves and with them the extraordinary potential of their perfection, because - unlike the performers and the audience - they are exactly as they were then, in the past. They exist within themselves and above all for themselves. Only we attribute value, symbolism, and connotation to them. To mark or "mark" a former performance event with a focus on what is existentially understood as passive, lawless, and self-sufficient is in fact the most accurate. The silent omnipresence of objects-things, which once "played a role" in the performance event, today speaks with an exhibition voice that represents everything that is no longer there. What was around them has dissipated. Today, they ground a new event. Unlike co-located video documentation, visual matter is silent witness to the past and transience.
Exhibits on display at the exhibition, which are part of the opus Barbara Novakovic fundamentally marked the phenomenology of the selected performances, they are taken out of the original context and carefully relocated to a new one in order to tailor a new encounter, new relationships, verify existing memories of the past(s) and draw out the "material image / image of materials", which in the sphere of performance practice represent much more than we are aware of. At first glance, the exhibition objects/objects in our perception remain "exactly as they were" at the time; only reflection with a delay reveals the fundamental insight that their "materiality", which exists and resides beyond the sensory, verbal and rational, is constantly changing. Not because the changes are inscribed in them, but because they are inscribed in us.
Zala Dobovšek, PhD, dramaturge, theatrologue
Barbara Novakovic and the Museum
»Artistic signature of Barbara Novakovic, director, performer, producer and curator, has always been recognized in the Slovenian art scene as subversive, rich in references, humanistically focused and at the same time based on analytical knowledge of Slovenian and world art history. She has always stepped onto the scene in her own rhythm and with themes that, despite their historical relevance for contemporary times, often represented a risk and, so to speak, the "edge of the invisible", which, due to the complexity of the material, could not always be reflected on immediately, but only showed its influence over time. Her constant and close connection with the institute Museum, which she founded in 1996, she established a permanent but constantly evolving idea of infiltrating art history throughout her theatrical work and vice versa. On the Slovenian performance scene, she was also synonymous with "philosophical theater", which, as a concept creator and author of performances, she understands in an extremely complex and interdisciplinary way. Philosophical implications, which are evident in both approaches to content and performance formats, enter her expressions in a layered manner, on the one hand textually (literally), on the other as a substance, a kind of ineffable atmosphere. Philosophy as a raw reality, as a hard word, but at the same time also as a constantly present but invisible ring around our existences - on stage and in the audience.
The astonishingly extensive oeuvre of Barbara Novakovič and the Muzeum Institute reveals its political nature not only at the level of content or format, but is also reflected in the duality of the persistence of "women in the non-governmental sector", where hierarchies are duplicated, and vulnerability and (occasional) uncertainties can extend not only to the space of creation, but also to existence. It is also necessary to highlight the interdisciplinarity of her work, which has constantly moved between the visual (art history, material theatre), the performing (theatre, movement) and the philosophical (theoretical). The latter is read from an external perspective as a territory of specific inter-genre research, but we must not forget that the transition between different areas or artistic fields is still quite demanding; due to the combination of different aesthetic fields, it is necessary to constantly question the mechanisms, logic and even the obviousness of the other field and optimally place them in one's own language and expressive goal. "To put it very simply: we are not aware of the privilege of a common frame of reference until we step out of it and into another. Perhaps only then does the research truly begin. In fact, this is where the fundamental seeds of the experiment lie."
Zala Dobovšek, PhD, dramaturge, theatrologue
Guided tour of the exhibition with Barbara Novakovič
- on Sunday, May 18th 2025, at 5 PM
The exhibition opening took place on Thursday, May 15th 2025, at 7 PM. Photo: SLOGI.
From the media
Valvasorjeve nagrade, razstave: Majski salon, Zoran Mušič, Dediščine prihodnosti, Arhiv Furioso. Publikacija Gledališče kot muzej, Festival Prestopi, Tedni ljubiteljske kulture, Kulturna Panorama, 40:10–46:00 min, 3. program Radia Slovenija – program Ars, 17. 5. 2025
Arhiv furioso, pregledna razstava in nova publikacija Gledališče kot muzej, si24.news, 16. 5. 2025
Odprtje razstave Arhiv furioso in predstavitev publikacije Gledališče kot muzejV Slogiju razstava kot poklon Friedrichu Schillerju, Sigledal, 12. 5. 2025
Arhiv furioso
Review exhibition Muzeum 30 years: 15. 5. – 6. 6. 2025, Slovenian Theatre Institute (SLOGI)
Production: Muzeum Ljubljana (represented by: Barbara Novakovič, director)
Co-production: Slovenian Theatre Institute (represented by: Gašper Troha, director)
Author, curator and artist: Barbara Novakovič
In collaboration with artists: Meta Kojc, Mare Mutić, Andrej Lamut, Vlatka Ljubanović
Professional support: Primož Jesenko (Slovenian Theatre Institute), Gašper Troha (Slovenian Theatre Institute)
Texts: Zala Dobovšek, Barbara Novakovič
Carpentry work: Marko Udvanc, Miha Zupan
Technical support: Andrej Ovsec (Slovenian Theatre Institute)
Artifacts, texts, photographic material, video and audio recordings: Muzeum Institute and archives of Muzeum Theatre
Theater model: Dana Čuk, Valentin Dowhyj, Juna Drobnič, Maša Ferjančič (students of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, mentor: Asst. Prof. Vlatka Ljubanović)
Video recordings of performances: Tone Stojko, (Prodok Teater TV Ljubljana), Mare Mutić, Maša Nonković, Matej Kalafatić, Dunja Danial, Gregor Gobec, Manja and Avguštin Solce
Implementation of the instalation: Slovenian Theatre Institute
Poster (design: Dana Čuk)
Photo documentation: Mare Mutić
Support: City of Ljubljana, Department of Culture and Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
With the support of the City of Ljubljana, the Department of Culture and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
