Beti Zerovc | University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts (original) (raw)

Papers by Beti Zerovc

Život umjetnosti, 2023

The article focuses on Ivan Meštrović’s participation in the Vesna Artists’ Society, as it is reg... more The article focuses on Ivan Meštrović’s participation in the Vesna Artists’ Society, as it is regularly mentioned in various, especially Slovenian, art-historical writings, though more as an emphasis enhancing the reputation of the Society without explaining what his role in the Society actually was and why he left it relatively quickly. To shed light on these aspects, some of the mutual relationships between the future Vesna members before the Society’s establishment will be presented, followed by the selected segments of the activities that can provide a more solid definition of the Croatian members of the Society and the Croatian-Slovenian relations within it.

Acta historiae artis slovenica (Tiskana izd.), Oct 1, 2022

Izvleček: Nekaj drobcev o Kobilčini sliki Madona gospe Souvan v kontekstu naročništva in razstavl... more Izvleček: Nekaj drobcev o Kobilčini sliki Madona gospe Souvan v kontekstu naročništva in razstavljanja 1.01 Izvirni znanstveni članek Članek predstavlja podobo Madona gospe Souvan, ki jo je Ivana Kobilca naslikala za zasebno naročnico. Sliko, o kateri si je slikarka natančno dopisovala s svojo družino, časovno umesti v prve mesece leta 1900. Članek obravnava Kobilčin način ustvarjanja slike, stik s konkretnimi naročniki-Uršulo Souvan in njeno družino-in slikarkine zadržke ob potencialnem razstavljanju slike na drugi razstavi Slovenskega umetniškega društva v Ljubljani leta 1902. Obravnava slike Madona gospe Souvan, ki sicer ni pomembnejše Kobilčino delo, nam pomaga bolje razumeti slikarkin odnos do naročnikov in do razstavljanja v domači Ljubljani.

Likovne besede, 2007

An in-depth conversation with Sanja Iveković, Andreja Kulunčić and Mladen Stilinović on art syste... more An in-depth conversation with Sanja Iveković, Andreja Kulunčić and Mladen Stilinović on art system and exhibition as a medium, with accompanying short texts by Beti Žerovc.

ŽEROVC, Beti. PrvoobhActa historiae artis Slovenica, 2010, št. 15, str. 87-106, 2010

The paper presents three different issues related to the painter Matej Sternen (1870–1949). All t... more The paper presents three different issues related to the painter Matej Sternen (1870–1949). All three cases are focused upon obtaining a deeper and more far-reaching insight into a certain stylistic phase of the painter than could be obtained through the usual study of his chronologically lined up output. The first part deals with the iconographical motif of girls receiving their First Communion, which seems to have greatly interested the artist in his early period. Systematized and investigated are the painter's known executions of the motif, or rather the mentions in various sources of this theme in Sternen's work.
The first part deals with the iconographic motif of the First Communion, which seems to have interested the painter greatly in his early period, since it is clear that he painted several variants. Systematized and treated are the painter's known executions of the motif, whether in drawing or in print medium, or, respectively, the mentions of such works by Sternen in various sources. The research result is satisfactory on the one hand and on the other it is not. Confirmed was the presumed interest of the painter in this motif, and several realizations have been found, among which two variants of the motif differ one from the other completely. But regretfully, no bigger and more ambitions canvases are among the discovered works. With the help of the known material we can merely imagine that the paintings were executed in the realistic style, possibly not in the best way, so that they contained similar awkward solutions as can be traced in Sternen's comparable known works of this period. Sternen's genre painting is further integrated within the wider context of similar production of his Carniolan predecessors and contemporaries (Jožef Petkovšek, Anton Ažbe, Ferdo Vesel, Ivan Grohar, Rihard Jakopič, Matija Jama).
The second part investigates Sternen's partner Roza Klein as the principal character in his works of the 1903–07 period. It is not merely interesting to know who is depicted in some of the painter’s capital pieces (Portrait of Roza Klein, Počivajoča/Woman Resting, Rdeči parazol/The Red Parasol, Mrak/Twilight, etc.), but such a thorough study clarifies his poorly presented oeuvre and joins the images, which otherwise hover isolated, into a more concrete whole. Unexpectedly, the study of Roza Klein as the painter's model finally developed into a significant help to a more reliable chronology of Sternen's works and better understanding of the artist's painting mode and development. The depictions of Sternen's partner, first his girlfriend and later his wife, render possible to follow well the painter's stylistic evolution, in which the painting Twilight, for example, is one of his most experimental and artistically charged pictures. A special aspect to be clearly emphasized in this issue is that works, such as the Twilight, were not mere studies for Sternen's private use, waiting for decades to leave his studio for the first time, but they were considered by himself as his essential production already at the time of their origin. This can be concluded without hesitation from the fact that Sternen regularly exhibited this kind of his production, without regard to negative criticism, and stated the highest prices for such works.
The third part attempts to examine the frequently uttered statement that Sternen could not exhibit his famous nudes in the conservative and puritanical Ljubljana, or that he could only show them at home or, covered with a cloth, in a separate room of the Jakopič Pavilion, accessible only to the select. So it deals with the question when and whether at all, and in what context the painter exhibited this kind of his production in Ljubljana.
The task proved to be fairly easy in the case of exhibiting: a systematic overview of the exhibition catalogues of the Jakopič Pavilion between the years je 1912–16, when Sternen was presumably intensely producing his ambitiously painted nudes, has shown that he did exhibit them, even several at a time. The famed Corset, for example, was exhibited in 1914 at the Christmas exhibition, while at the 12th Art Exhibition in mid-1916 the painter even showed exclusively nudes, i.e. a group of four large-scale female ones: The Magdalene, A Mask (Krinka), Nude (Akt) and After the Bath (Po kopeli).
The tolerance for and the level of susceptibility to painted nudes were by no means as low in Ljubljana in the early 20th century as we are inclined to believe. As regards this issue, Carniolan morals were in general more lax as it seems; art nude and its exhibiting were acceptable, because this was grounded, firstly, in the nude having several centuries of tradition and, secondly, in the very training process, which made the drawing and painting of human body the key task of study. Good command of study nude was an important, actually the most important, step towards a successful rendering of a multi-figural composition, which was at least throughout the 19th century still generally considered a sort of professional climax in the art of painting. For this reason study act of good quality was highly valued, and it was not painted only by students but also by established painters throughout their career, whether as exercise or preliminary work for various scenes. These sorts of nudes were regularly exhibited, without particular difficulties also in Ljubljana. For example, at the First and the Second Slovene Art Exhibitions a considerable number of different nudes (Sternen’s too!) were shown, which led to no major trouble. Slovene art critics and reporters were by far more disturbed by the modernity and particularly by the “non finito”. Both study and autonomous nudes were not expected to embarrass the middle-class audience also because of the fact that these spectators were acquainted with the depictions of nudes by various Salon painters, who were even rewarded at the most outstanding Salon exhibitions and applauded all over Europe. Their nudes were regularly reproduced in different papers and illustrated magazines. Summa summarum, the basic question in the reception of nudes in early- 20th-century Ljubljana, like elsewhere, was not whether the nude yes or the nude no, but where the slippery limit was that denoted which and what kind of nude was no longer acceptable.

Contributions to Contemporary History, 2020

Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino, 2020

Besedilo obravnava nekatere sodobne problematike postavljanja javnih skulptur in spomenikov v Slo... more Besedilo obravnava nekatere sodobne problematike postavljanja javnih skulptur in spomenikov v Sloveniji. Osredotoča se na Spomenik žrtvam vseh vojn, ki je bil poleti 2017 odkrit v središču Ljubljane. Spomenik in dogajanje okoli njega zajame kot primer zapleta, v katerem neustrezno ravnanje različnih deležnikov v dolgotrajnem procesu nasta-janja spomenika proizvaja številna družbena nesoglasja in na koncu tudi problematičen spomenik. Članek problematizira historični revizionizem v odnosu do druge svetovne vojne, ki se udejanja v spomeniku in skozi procese, povezane z njim. Preizprašuje, kako in zakaj nas-tane takšen velik državni spomenik, čeprav ni strokovno utemeljenega konsenza o tem, da spomeniki dejansko delujejo zdravilno na travmatizirane in postkonfliktne družbe, kot tudi ni konsenza o tem, da Slovenci v tem trenutku smo takšna družba. O spomeniku se pogosto govori kot o spomeniku spravi, čeprav ni konsenza o nujnosti sprave, kaj šele o tem, kaj naj bi ta sprava dejansko pomenila in kaj naj bi bili njeni elementi.
The text discusses some of the contemporary issues of erecting public sculptures and monuments in Slovenia. It focuses on the Monument to the Victims of All Wars, which was inaugurated in the center of Ljubljana in the summer of 2017. The monument and events around it are presented as an example of a predicament in which inadequate behavior of different stakeholders in the long-term process of monument formation produces numerous social disagreements and, finally, a problematic monument.

The article problematizes historic revisionism in relation to the Second World War, which acts through the monument and through the processes associated with it. It is questioning how and why such a large state monument is created, even though there is no professional consensus that monuments actually operate therapeutically on traumatized and post-conflict societies, as well as there is no consensus that Slovenians are such a society at the moment. The monument is often referred to as a monument of reconciliation, although there is no consensus on the necessity of reconciliation, let alone about what this reconcilliation actually means and what should its elements be.
Ključne besede: Spomenik žrtvam vseh vojn, javna plastika, umetnost in družbena odgovornost, zgodovinski revizionizem, kolektivni spomin.

Ars & Humanitas, 2020

The First World War monuments produced in interwar Yugoslavia are today usually discussed separa... more The First World War monuments produced in interwar Yugoslavia are today usually discussed separately, within the context of the successor state to which they belong. The article attempts to present a picture of this production that is as comprehensive as possible, outlining not only the common features of these works but also their differences, which to a large degree were conditioned by very diverse local traditions of commemoration and memorial creation.
To achieve its aim the article analyses how the production of public monuments in a new country was established on a systemic level, from where its mindset and artistic influences were originating, who were its key creators and pedagogues. It further questions, how the monuments dedicated to the First World Var are inscribed with desires to strengthen a common Yugoslav identity, establish a collective imaginary, and develop a distinctive visual image of the young state. Yugoslavia faced considerable difficulties in this area, which were fostered not only by internal inter-ethnic and political tensions and a poorly thought-out state cultural policy, but also by the lack of unifying shared stories and memories. Because, before unification, the different parts of Yugoslavia had often found themselves in opposing political camps, stories from the past could even be extremely divisive for the young state.

Maska, 2008

To better understand how the art system is structured as regards curatorship, and to be able to m... more To better understand how the art system is structured as regards curatorship, and to be able to more easily follow curators’ pro-fessional pathways, we are going to reimagine the system and its functioning in a simpliﬁed and schematic way: as an irregular network structure that expands internationally and accommodates constant exchange and presentation of various segments ofcontemporary art at a global level. The curator is a vital part ofthis circulation, most often functioning as a nexus between the local community that hired him and the most topical information about art available outside this community, the most signiﬁcant international contemporary trends, and so forth. At thesame time, the curator also ensures that the community’s own production successfully enters broader circulation in respectedsocial circles.

If we simplify things even further, the key or logic of this network is that it (the network) includes institutions, groups, andindividuals from various milieus who are collaborating and sup-porting each other within the network. Inclusion in the networkenables them to secure, for themselves, the possibility of working internationally in the very “oﬃcial” mainstream of contemporary art that is at the same time established and legitimised by this network. For the participant, being included in this systemmeans gaining special status and broader relevance in his ownenvironment (if this environment takes the network into consid-eration, it is an excellent source of funding that enables inclusionin the broader network) as well as internationally – anywhere this network shapes the criteria that determine what constitutes relevant contemporary art.

Likovne besede, 2019

Associations for fine art in Carniola in the period from 1848 to 1918 The article focuses on the... more Associations for fine art in Carniola in the period from 1848 to 1918

The article focuses on the development, structure analysis, and the effects of the various associations specialized in fine art in Carniola between 1848 and 1918. In the beginning we focus on the activities of the Carniolan branch of the Austrian Art Society (Österreichischer Kunstverein) established in 1852, and the occasional exhibiting of the Styrian Art Society (Steriermärkischer Kunstverein) from Graz in Ljubljana during the third quarter of the 19th century. Such societies included both, the so-called Friends of Art (Kunstfreunde; members of the bourgeoisie and nobility) as well as artists. Their introduction of regular artwork exhibitions in the form of commercial international group exhibitions had a strong influence on the field of art in Carniola.
An even more pronounced development and activity of fine art associations in Ljubljana follows at the turn of the century. During this period societies and groups of artists that were closely affiliated with the local environment emerged. Such associations were the Christian Art Society of Ljubljana (1894), the Slovenian Artists' Society (1899), the Vesna Artists' Society (1903) and the Sava Artists' Group (1904). Some of them showed a clear Slovenian national and party orientation. At the same time, we can also follow the well planned out and important art exhibition program which was organized by the bourgeois club Kazina in Ljubljana during the first decade of the 20th century. As a social club for the members of more German-oriented city elite, it hosted a series of art exhibitions by prominent artists' associations from Graz and Vienna, such as Hagenbund and Künstlerhaus.
Even if we can not yet fully understand and define all the reasons for such a quick development and intensity of art events in Ljubljana in the period just before 1914, we can suspect it was probably, to the largest extent, fueled by heated political and ethnic tensions in Carniola. The period, brought to an abrupt end with the First World War, meant an important and blossoming period of art exhibiting in Ljubljana as it also resulted in the first contemporary art exhibiting grounds in the city – the Jakopič Pavilion.

I find the realistic rituals in contemporary institutions at odds with the institutions’ usual cl... more I find the realistic rituals in contemporary institutions at odds with the institutions’ usual claims of how their art is empowering and can even teach people to think critically. I would even claim the opposite: we're rather teaching people to bow silently and submissively before things they do not understand. In relation to audiences this is, for me, now the crucial problem that needs to be addressed.
In the light of the recent growth of the private institutions, a question should be asked, what do those private owners have to say to their audiences and why do they suddenly speak so loudly?

Curatorial work and museum education seem to sometimes be on completely different tracks. Even th... more Curatorial work and museum education seem to sometimes be on completely different tracks. Even though artistic and curatorial discourses are increasingly interested in research and education, they are still full of practices of distinction; the codes for reading contemporary art seem closed, except to the very few. Meanwhile, contemporary art audiences are increasingly comprised of those who know little or nothing about it, and might seem “incapable” of reading artworks. All this positions contemporary educators in the middle of contradictory and problematic practices of “inclusion” and “exclusion”.
Asja Mandić, a Sarajevo based curator, art educator and professor, is a perfect candidate to meditate on contemporary art museum education and all the kinds of problems it faces within contemporary art institutions. Mandić used to work at Ars Aevi Museum/Centre of Contemporary Art, Sarajevo, and was searching for an educational approach that can help audiences who don’t know much about contemporary art to find ways to access it. She became interested in the Visual Thinking Strategies methodology, first writing a PhD, and then a book about her research (Izazovi muzejske edukacije, 2014, Bosnian language only).
Museum Educators arguably have the task to attract as many people as possible, and to take care of them. But methods of care can be debated. One of my primary questions to Mandić is therefore, what does it mean—for art, and for us as a society— if we're welcoming and encouraging art audiences to lose all fear about asking the “wrong” questions, and prompting them to be opinionated without any real knowledge?

Henri Lefebvre, znameniti mislec prostora, je leta 1985 v predgovoru knjige Produkcija prostora (... more Henri Lefebvre, znameniti mislec prostora, je leta 1985 v predgovoru knjige Produkcija prostora (slovenski prevod Studia Humanitatis, 2013) zapisal, da produkcijski način ureja – proizvaja – svoj prostor (in svoj čas) in se na ta način dovrši. Trditvi zlahka pritrdimo, sliši se logično, vendar kaj pravzaprav pomeni? Kaj bi to lahko pomenilo v primeru slovenskih mest?

Tukaj si verjetno na hitro zamislimo sebe kot sodobnega potrošnika v trgovskem središču na obrobju mesta – in samoobtožujoče zavzdihnemo. Morda večina ne razmišlja naprej o izčrpavanju meščanskih vsebin iz starih mestnih jeder in njihovi transformaciji za turistične namene, saj fasade ostajajo (bolj ali manj) iste. Še manj premišljujemo tako o novodobni produkciji javnih skulptur in spomenikov. Koliko sploh razmišljamo o svojem javnem prostoru kot o proizvedenem? O tem, kaj in kako ta komunicira z nami in kako sooblikuje naš (osebni) čas?

Portret Henrika Czernyja iz Narodne galerije je kvaliteten, ambiciozno zastavljen, suvereno slika... more Portret Henrika Czernyja iz Narodne galerije je kvaliteten, ambiciozno zastavljen, suvereno slikan in nam o slikarju Jakopiču pove mnogo dobrega. Zanj je bil tudi zelo pomemben v zgodnjem obdobju uveljavljanja na Kranjskem, saj je že ob Prvi slovenski umetniški razstavi jasno sporočal dve pomembni stvari: da je mladi Jakopič vešč slikar sposoben izvesti veliko salonsko podobo in da se da tudi k tradicionalnemu žanru pristopiti na bolj sodoben način, kot so ga bili dotlej vajeni v Ljubljani. Ljubljanska in zagrebška kritika sta že tedaj dobro opazili ključne elemente in značilnosti slike – močno luč, ki prihaja v sliko izza hrbta portretiranca, razblinjenost obrisov, ki jo ta povzroča v sliki, močno barvitost le-te in svobodno, odprto potezo umetnika – in sta bili nad njimi in celoto večinoma navdušeni. Kritike je ob tej razstavi pri Jakopiču zmotilo predvsem preobilje skic v razmerju do končanih slik – zlasti jih je begal barviti Počitek, manj pa ateljejske študije – vendar mu tudi ob teh ni odrekala talenta in splošna ocena v medijih je bila za slikarja pozitivna.
Kljub temu oziroma prav zaradi tega portret nekako »štorasto čemi v slovenski umetnostni zgodovini«. Sicer se ga dokaj redno razstavlja, vsaj v zadnjem desetletju, a pisanje o njem izostaja. Morda bi lahko domnevali, da se mu pisci celo izogibajo in to prav vsled sumnjičavosti o tako zgodnji letnici nastanka. Vendar spreminjanja letnic se slovenska umetnostnozgodovinska stroka zelo nerada loteva, pri Jakopiču še sploh. Eno je, da se s takšnimi posegi posredno upiramo interpretaciji opusa in umetniškega razvoja, kot ju je podal slikar sam. S takšnimi spremembami namreč postavljamo pod vprašaj datacije njegovih del nasploh, prav tako pa celotno strukturo njegove umetniške poti, pri kateri se je redno zapostavljal njegov zgodnji temeljni interes za figuraliko v korist sproščene krajinske skice, ki je postala hvaležna ilustracija njegovih modernističnih teženj. Drugo je, da s takšnimi gestami hitro zaidemo v konflikt s splošno uveljavljeno mitologijo o začetni nesprejetosti slikarja v njegovem domačem okolju, saj pojasnjevanje sprememb zahteva podrobno obravnavo del in prav ta podrobna obravnava del raziskovalca pogosto jasno sooči s fabriciranostjo te mitologije.

One of the crucial changes that occurred in contemporary visual art in the twentieth century was ... more One of the crucial changes that occurred in contemporary visual art in the twentieth century was the formation of an immense institutional platform with thousands of very different institutions that not only exhibit, house, and support contemporary art, but also directly commission it and produce it. This global network of institutions is run by contemporary art experts – which as a rule means curators, not artists. Curators are the ones who devise and administer programmes, who invite the public to participate in a varied and constant stream of events, and who guide the public using a complex discourse rich in metaphor and conceptual abstraction. The art system, therefore, not only allows but even demands that the curator, too, in keeping with the charismatic ideology of the art field, be as fully consecrated as possible and also that production relations be defined, not clearly as actual production relations, but rather as, for instance, the relations of hospitable hosting.
In such a structure, we must accept the fact that both hosting and hospitality are structurally and professionally conditioned and also that this manner of operation produces, among other things, specific forms and types of imagery. Here we mean not only images associated with artworks, but also images – disseminated to a broad public largely by the media or by the online social networks – that are associated with the institutional segment itself, in which motifs of hosting and images of the curator and his activities occupy an essential place. Imagery of this sort is today a regular accompaniment to the “lives” of exhibitions, institutions, and curators, so it makes sense to understand it as an integral part of these hospitality rituals.
With regard to the communication of these images through the media, the following two facts are best presented as a significant opposition: such imagery is mediated intentionally and deliberately, but it gives the appearance of happening or at least of originating naturally and almost accidentally. For one thing, we do not see this imagery as an inherent part of a certain way of working but merely as its discrete “side effect”; for another, we understand it as the media’s factual and impartial reporting of important events – a reporting that is bound by journalistic objectivity and ethics. It seems as if the publication of this imagery in the media may or may not happen – despite the fact that the production and distribution of institutional imagery is a systematically organized and planned. Institutions and curators deliberately generate and steer such presentations, and also try as much as possible to steer the way they are communicated. They pursue a wide range of strategic goals with such imagery, for example, in relation to their funding sources, whether public or private.
Within the art field itself, media imagery exerts its influence in many different ways, which given their complexity are difficult to define. It is quite obvious that media operations with institutional imagery can contribute substantially to the accumulation of symbolic capital, prestige, and similar factors, which achieve high operability in the field and which curators and others consciously pursue and utilize in their work, for instance, in establishing their reputations. It is more difficult – given the art field’s extraordinary responsiveness to media impulses – to determine how media imagery actively contributes to the formation of the most diverse range of concrete opinions, views, and assessments.

Gary Vikan, an art historian, writer, and the former Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltim... more Gary Vikan, an art historian, writer, and the former Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (1994–2013), is publishing this fall a memoir with a telling title: Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Art Director. Vikan's wide area of scholarly interest ranges from late antique and early medieval art to Elvis Presley and his cult, while his specific focus lies in exploring how objects and places acquire a “special aura.” (Vikan’s recent books include Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art [2011] and From the Holy Land to Graceland: Sacred People, Places, and Things in Our Lives [2013]). His memoir, Sacred and Stolen, is a reflection on various ethically-demanding curatorial challenges and issues he faced during his professional career of 40 years.

The paper discusses the participation of the Sava Group artists at the First Exhibition of Sloven... more The paper discusses the participation of the Sava Group artists at the First Exhibition of Slovene Artists in Trieste (National Hall, October 1907) and their artistic production of the time. With the help of three photographs taken in the exhibition rooms and preserved in the legacy of Fran Vesel (National and University Library, Ljubljana) the artworks of the Sava Group members, exhibited on this occasion, are identified in the first place, several of which are untraced or lost today. Analysed on the basis of such reconstruction of individual exhibited oeuvres are the production and the manner of exhibiting of individual artists. The exhibition activity and current production are constantly observed in view of their inter-relationship, because for the artists they were vitally interconnected and reciprocal.
The exhibition in Trieste can be of considerable help in dating more reliably the production of the Sava members. Whereas particularly the works of Rihard Jakopič have often been greatly antedated, those of Matej Sternen, on the other hand, have often been postdated. It is exactly in the case of Sternen that the Trieste exhibition represents a clear ante quem for a number of his works or studies for them (Mrak/Dusk and studies for it; Krajina (jutro)/Landscape (morning), etc.). Furthermore, the knowledge of new works of the artists expands the list of their already known motifs, or helps that their already known thematic priorities become more conspicuous and nuanced. By means of the contextualization of the paintings (which we know only from old black-and-white photographs) within the framework of the exhibition, Ivan Grohar (1867–1911), Rihard Jakopič (1869–1943), Matija Jama (1872–1947) and Matej Sternen (1870–1949), for example, more distinctly appear as landscapists, and with Jakopič and Sternen the continuity of their dealing with the motif of a middle-class woman indoors receives clearer outlines.
The paper also presents the principles of staging the exhibitions which were usually followed by the Sava members and can be fairly well reconstructed also from the surviving correspondence between them. Taking account of the realities of the exhibition rooms, their size and the height of the walls, the lighting and the like they tried to organize their exhibition space or department into as balanced and harmonious a whole as possible. The “capital works” were given the most convenient place, i.e. the centre of the wall in the eye-height; smaller paintings were arranged so as to provide a smooth transition between these prominent works. The artists tried to group together the paintings that were similar in terms of colours and themes; no picture if it was considerably different or too gaudy was allowed among them lest it might disturb the harmony of the rest or even “shout them down”. The described principles are clearly evident also at the Trieste exhibition, where Sternen and Jakopič, being more colourful and figural and demonstrating a more expressed and visibly rendered brushwork, were mounted together. On the other side Jama and Grohar “hung” together, who exhibited, except for the latter’s Sejalec/Sower, landscapes, unified in tone.

Slovene art group Vesna (1903-06). Beti Žerovc, Vesna ob izviru umetnosti, in: Potlačena umetno... more Slovene art group Vesna (1903-06).

Beti Žerovc, Vesna ob izviru umetnosti, in: Potlačena umetnost (ed. Barbara Borčič, Jure Mikuž), Ljubljana: Open Society Institute, 1999.

If, as we saw in our examples, curatorial education and training are intended primarily for organ... more If, as we saw in our examples, curatorial education and training are intended primarily for organising an event, and the highest demands are made on the curator at this level – while such aspects as messages, the refinement of concepts and selections, etc., are areas where he can most easily and with the greatest impunity let things slide and be adaptable – then on this level too we must treat him and his discourse as conditioned by this. And we must also accept the fact that, since his primary commitment is to the execution of the event, he will adapt everything to this goal. So as long as they help him on this path, he will have no problem with either constant compromise – even if it results in things being the opposite of his professed desires – or perverted logic – by which his very training both teaches him how to siphon money from rich sponsors and instils in him beautiful ideas about stripping these same groups of their power and wealth so they can be more justly and evenly redistributed, etc. If not before, then certainly after such training, the curatorial candidate’s perhaps genuine youthful enthusiasm and social commitment can merge with his strategy, becoming mere forms, powerless to serve “the cause” – from the curator who, losing a battle with time, chooses noble themes for his exhibitions, themes about society and justice, simply because they are today’s popular topics or are at least above reproach, to the curator who recognises that his winning strategy lies precisely in denying, ignoring, and masking the dualities we have discussed. He recognises that, in the existing circumstances, those who are potentially the most successful are the ones who have the ability to overlook this problematic duality and so in their practical work are the most grasping and insincere, who are able to secure the most prestigious venues, the greatest media attention, and enormous financial resources, and who at the same time, in their exhibition work and public profile, know how to cut the finest figure, artistically and politically, so that they appear, all at once, overtly revolutionary, politically informed, and even self-critical, contritely beating their breasts for working in such a corrupt system. The simple fact is that once a certain moral conviction becomes practically part of the job description, it can very soon turn into nothing more than a personal career strategy – an entirely pragmatic choice that ensures success in the profession, and not a matter of genuine commitment.

Život umjetnosti, 2023

Acta historiae artis slovenica (Tiskana izd.), Oct 1, 2022

Likovne besede, 2007

ŽEROVC, Beti. PrvoobhActa historiae artis Slovenica, 2010, št. 15, str. 87-106, 2010

Contributions to Contemporary History, 2020

Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino, 2020

Ars & Humanitas, 2020

Maska, 2008

Likovne besede, 2019

Associations for fine art in Carniola in the period from 1848 to 1918 The article focuses on the... more Associations for fine art in Carniola in the period from 1848 to 1918

Slovene art group Vesna (1903-06). Beti Žerovc, Vesna ob izviru umetnosti, in: Potlačena umetno... more Slovene art group Vesna (1903-06).

Beti Žerovc, Vesna ob izviru umetnosti, in: Potlačena umetnost (ed. Barbara Borčič, Jure Mikuž), Ljubljana: Open Society Institute, 1999.

The book presents a comprehensive overview of the vast production of monuments in socialist Yugos... more The book presents a comprehensive overview of the vast production of monuments in socialist Yugoslavia (1945–91) dedicated to the antifascist People's Liberation Struggle in the Second World War and the socialist revolution. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these monuments have been subject to various fates, from neglect and physical destruction to global fame generated by the high-modernist visual appeal of a number of them. But the full scope, wide-ranging diversity, and complex context of Yugoslav monument making, including its various contradictions, have remained largely unexplored.

The book offers a thorough and interdisciplinary exploration of this phenomenon and a rich visual material to examine its key characteristics and specificities: What memorial practices and commemorative traditions preceded the development of monument-making in socialism? Who commissioned these monuments and how did Yugoslav cultural and memory politics influence their production? Who were their authors and what defined their formal and typological features? How was Yugoslav monument production related to comparative efforts abroad? What commemorative practices developed around monuments? How is this legacy evaluated and received today, both in the post-Yugoslav successor states and internationally?

Introduction to the book When Attitudes Become the Norm The Contemporary Curator and Institutiona... more Introduction to the book When Attitudes Become the Norm
The Contemporary Curator and Institutional Art
Some sentences from the cover by Mary Anne Staniszewski:
"Beti Žerovc has not only written an insightful and provocative book, but an especially timely one.
In this book devoted to the field of curating and “institutional art”, Žerovc raises questions about the character and limitations of the “exhibition-maker as artist” and the “exhibition as a work of art”, asking whether the socio-political objectives for the latter actually manifest contradictory or even opposite effects given the inescapable conditions of capitalism.
The book culminates with Žerovc’s queries about the ritualistic function of contemporary art exhibitions, and this is evocatively expressed in her introduction: “There was once great discussion about how removing artworks from their original context and installing them in the museum meant their certain death. Today, it seems, we need to be thinking about different questions. Does the institution of visual art bring something to life … what, in fact, are we summoning to life?”

Ortsbezogene Kunst Site-Specific Art at Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien; Shifting Sites: Territories and Space, conceived by Mechtild Widrich and the Department of Site-Specific Art, 2018

In recent decades Yugoslav high-modernist monuments relating to World War II have been enjoying f... more In recent decades Yugoslav high-modernist monuments relating to World War II have been enjoying favourable attention, often accompanied by an indefinable discomfort. This could possibly be related to the perception of a modernist abstract artwork as inherently linked to the capitalist system, where its quality is conditioned precisely by the great individual freedom the system provides. In this regard, the fact that high-modernist abstract objects underwent such remarkable development in the public sphere of Yugoslav socialism, which is today often stigmatized as totalitarian, appears to be an anomaly.

One quick and customary solution for this uncomfortable contradiction, one that is in line with the reasoning just mentioned, is the nonchalant representation of these monuments as if they accidentally fell into the Balkans "from the sky" and are not the product of a deliberate Yugoslav policy, a certain ideology and an effective cultural and political system.

However, even a precise study of the monuments does not resolve the matter, as behind their emergence we find a complex collision of incoherent motivations ranging from the intentional political propagandistic use of modernist art, similar to the one that was carried out by the capitalist West, to the predilection of many Yugoslav politicians for modernist art and other enticements of the bourgeois world.

Can we understand these objects as a way to search for the Yugoslav Third Way, or at least as symbols of this pursuit, or are they just a kind of Trojan horse of capitalism in socialism?

Milenko Matanović, who in the 1960s was a member of the OHO group, made some of Slovenian iconic... more Milenko Matanović, who in the 1960s was a member of the OHO group, made some of Slovenian iconic works: Triglav (1968), Wheat and Rope (1969), Project, 30 April 1970, The Constellation of the Candles in the Field Corresponds to the Constellation of the Stars in the Sky (1970).
At the beginning of the 1970s, he moved to the US, where he founded and until recently ran the Pomegranate Center, which undertakes a number of different tasks, but primarily helps urban neighbourhoods and other communities plan and build common gathering areas (http://www.pomegranatecenter.org/).
We will talk about the various stops in his artistic path, but above all about artistic engagement in direct relation to everyday life.

In the series Art for Collective Use, over the course of the next few years, we will be examining... more In the series Art for Collective Use, over the course of the next few years, we will be examining the development of exhibition practices and art institutions in Slovenia and Central Europe, as well as in the wider international context. We will begin in the first half of the 19th century with the start of modern exhibition-making in the Slovene lands and then move through the evolution of exhibition-making and the institutionalization of the art field right up to the present day. We will discuss various aspects of exhibition-making – institutions, exhibition installations, artworks, the audience, etc. – and try to understand how and why exhibition-making appeared and became established in the region. We will examine the relationship between exhibitions and art and try to determine the kinds of exhibitions that have been successful in Slovenia and where problems most often occurred. We will pay attention to who organizes and/or finances exhibitions and why they do so. We will reflect on the role exhibitions played in the nationalist and political discourses of the 19th and 20th centuries and the role they play today.
Throughout the seminar we will be considering selected phenomena relating to the institutionalization of art, especially exhibitions and ways to do them. We will ask, for example, how artists such as Mihael Stroj, Anton Karinger, Ivana Kobilca, Rihard Jakopič, Avgust Černigoj, the Independents (Neodvisni), and the OHO Group made exhibitions and why they did it the way they did. How did the institutionalization of contemporary art develop so rapidly after World War II, and why did such an enormous surge of biennial exhibitions “happen” to us in the 1970s and 1980s? We will ask about the traditional role of curators in art exhibitions and look at the changes contemporary curatorial practices have brought to Slovene exhibition-making. By analysing concrete examples of exhibition practices, we will begin to see more clearly the inner logic and operational principles of the Slovene art system.
In the first year we will look at the 19th century, which saw the widespread introduction of general and professional education in the Slovene lands – including various kinds of drawing instruction (which provided employment or additional income to numerous painters). Eventually, the commissioning and collecting of art became established among the middle class, and the first institution for collecting and housing visual art (among other things) was founded, namely, the Provincial Museum of Carniola. In the 1860s, contemporary art begins to be shown regularly in group exhibitions at the Kazina in Ljubljana, which also leads to increasingly conscientious reporting on art and art events in the Carniolan press.
Because the positioning of the art system in the 19th century, both generally and within individual countries and provinces, represents the basis of today’s art system (as well as national art systems), and because many operational practices in the system are not developed from scratch but rather modify and extend older practices, we need a good grasp of the beginnings if we want to understand the evolution of both the art system and art in the 20th century and to the present time. The connections between art institutions and the development of the modern nation state, as well as the institutions’ connections with such phenomena as increasing secularization, globalization, and tourism, must be considered in order to understand why the situation in the art field is the way it is and why the art system has been able to grow stronger and expand so successfully right up to today. As Robert Jensen shows in his lucid study Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, aesthetic modernism from its very beginnings produced not only a body of artwork and scores of “-isms” but also a body of institutions and a matrix of practices, which, unlike modern art, was accepted almost without resistance by European and American art publics.

Beti Žerovc

About the book When Attitudes Become the Norm; The Contemporary Curator and Institutional Art. As... more About the book When Attitudes Become the Norm; The Contemporary Curator and Institutional Art.
As explained in the last minutes interview in the relation "art – society" not only the artworks are important, but more and more, among other because of the strong media attention, also the constant comedia dell' arte we're playing with artist as a sort of allegory of the contemporary man. I think we have to think about how we are doing things and not only about what we are doing contentwise.
Art is (still) projecting into the world an image of a strong, entrepreneurial individual, as positive, only now he is the winner of the horrible, very unpredictable rules and traps of the super-unfair art world. And obviously artists proofs that in this horrible world it is possible to do good, great things, achieve beauty… But to achieve this artist has to do anything for his job and take no real social and human responsibility. (For example, I don't care at all who buys and owes my work.)
We should be thinking about the possibility that we're building the ideological background for people like Trump instead of only hating him and seeing his voters as simpletons.

The seminar treats two distinctive art phenomena in Yugoslavia and its successor states: performa... more The seminar treats two distinctive art phenomena in Yugoslavia and its successor states: performance art and memorial monuments associated with World War II. Our discussion deals with the entire period from the end of the 19th century to the present, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, when both practices were at their high point.

The seminar’s primary subject comprises the monumental memorial works dedicated to events Jasenovac, photo: Damil Kalogjerafrom World War II. These monuments can take very different forms and resist any uniform definition. The most ambitious memorializing projects may incorporate numerous structures of varying purposes, including cultural and regional centres (e.g. the Memorial Centre in Kolašin or the Monument at Petrova Gora) or make sweeping changes to the landscape (e.g. the well-marked and well-ordered system of paths for strolling and recreation that constitute the Path of Remembrance and Comradeship in Ljubljana). Today especially, it seems, we are fascinated by monumental objects of extraordinary dimensions that tend toward very purified forms or abstraction and that are situated in remote nature (e.g. the monuments in Tjentište and on Mrakovica Peak on Mt. Kozara). The tradition of building such monuments is very much alive even today, only the ideological principles behind their creation are different (e.g. the Memorial Park in Teharje and the not-yet-completed Monument to the Victims of All Wars in Ljubljana).

Another very impressive chapter of Yugoslav art can be seen in the former country’s diverse performance-art practices. Yugoslav performance artists (such as Marina Abramović, the OHO group, Sanja Iveković, and others) were well informed and very well connected internationally; important foreign representatives of this art form (such as Gina Pane, Ana Mendieta, Joseph Beuys, and Walter De Maria) also came to Yugoslavia on visits or for art events. While it is extremely difficult to find a common denominator in Yugoslav performance art, it eventually acquired the general label of an explicitly political art. In relation to our topic, two points seem interesting: first, a number of key performance artists came from the families of prominent state officials or personages in post-war Yugoslavia, and, second, this fact is explicitly underscored in their biographies.

The juxtaposition of monumental memorial projects and performance art may seem unusual – at first glance they have nothing in common. The differences in their media, their intentions, and their audiences are all too apparent. But analysis also reveals a number of convergences and similarities: both practices were at their height at practically the same time; both contain strong aspects of ritual and very actively include the body; both forms possess a great ability to stir intense emotions and establish identity; and both reach for extremes in ways that are entirely calculated and deliberate.

After the collapse of Yugoslavia, the World War II monuments often became targets of verbal and physical attacks, but in recent years a more positive fascination with these works has been persistently on the rise. Maybe, for many, the fascination comes from the monuments’ extraordinary appearance, which at times works in connection with a Romantic delight in socialist ruins. Some, however, are puzzled by how it was possible to establish modernist principles on such a mass scale and achieve such remarkable results specifically in the practice of public monumental memorials, which was generally not inclined toward the broad use of consistently implemented modernist methods – and this in a time and place that today is often labelled totalitarian. Given that the commissioners of such works were as much “responsible” for them as the artists were, the question is: why did they act as they did?

Beti Žerovc

Beti Žerovc, editor; organizers: Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana and Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory

The Places of Memory of the First World War in Croatia Until recently it was commonly believed th... more The Places of Memory of the First World War in Croatia
Until recently it was commonly believed that the newly-established political climate
in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, impeded
the construction of monuments and memorials to soldiers that died fighting for
Austria-Hungary. I will prove that this is a belief with little or no basis in reality. While
it is true that some of these memorials were removed from public spaces, the majority
of these were in fact erected in honor of the Emperor and King Franz Joseph, the Austro-
Hungarian state and the Austro-Hungarian army.
I have divided the remaining places of memory in Croatia into the following categories:
war cemeteries, public monuments–memorials to those that died in the war,
individual gravestones, cenotaphs, ossuaries, mausoleums, memorial plaques, photo
panels and crossroad crucifixes. War cemeteries were built next to civilian and military
hospitals throughout Croatia (e.g., at Bjelovar, Pakrac, Vukovar-Bršadin, Vinkovci,
Ilok, Požega, and Slavonski Brod). Today, the remains of these cemeteries exist only in
Zagreb, Osijek, Karlovac, Našice, Pula and Sisak. War memorials from this time can be
found in Dubrovnik, Korčula, Karlovac, Ogulin, Otočac, Sisak, Sušak and Varaždin. Most
of the monuments were later destroyed and today no longer exist.
Moreover, many of these monuments and memorials were erected after the end
of the war. They were sometimes built in public spaces, in town squares, parks or next
to parish churches, but most often appeared in local cemeteries. We have information
about some of the initiators of these projects, the circumstances in which some were
built, and the identities of some of the authors. For the most part, however, we have
no information. The majority of the monuments or memorials were crosses, sculptures,
and obelisks with lists of victims’ names, or they were simple memorials with
the inscription 1914–1918, obviously referring to the First World War. To the best of my
knowledge, memorials that were built after the war ended and that honored the war
victims include those in Zagreb, Pakrac, Dol (on Hvar), Gola, Jarmina, Varaždin, Čakovec,
Šemovci (near Virje), Đurđevac, Gospić, and Koprivnički Ivanec. The memorials
erected during the interwar period are dedicated to all victims regardless of nationality
or religion. However, there are also examples that prove this was not always the case.
For example, a cenotaph dedicated to local Germans who died in the war was erected
in Krndija (1926), while Križevci (1935), Koprivnica (1934), and Zagreb (1930) all contain
memorials to Jews who were killed in the conflict. In Križevci (1935), Koprivnica
(1934), Zagreb (1930) and Slavonski Brod (?) we find monuments to fallen Jews.
Photo panels are another form of memorial. Such panels were placed in Đakovo,
Nuštar, Vinkovci, Koprivnica and Koprivnički Ivanec. Other communities produced metal
plaques with the names of fallen parishioners and locals. Most of these were placed
on the inside walls of churches, but some were also placed on the outside (e.g., at Šestine,
Našice, Karlovac, and Varaždinske Toplice). Smaller villages and individual citizens
put up crucifixes at crossroads, usually in front of churches or in cemeteries (as seen in
Čazma, Milaševac, Bosiljevo, Dragičevci, Vučani, Dubrovčan, and Šemovci).
The neglect and even destruction of graves, cemeteries, memorials and monuments
13
from the First World War became commonplace after 1945. The restoration of the old
First World War memorials and the construction of new ones in Croatia began only a
few years ago, and such activities have mostly been related to the centenary of the war.

Starejše študijsko gradivo in načrt za terenske vaje na Češkem, osredotočene na stike med Čehi in... more Starejše študijsko gradivo in načrt za terenske vaje na Češkem, osredotočene na stike med Čehi in Slovenci na likovnem področju od začetka 19. stoletja do druge svetovne vojne.