Iskanje: TITLE
torek, 5. junij 2012
Exhibition on Sculptor Pogačnik to Open at Moderna galerija
Ljubljana, 5. June (STA) – A retrospective exhibition on sculptor Marko Pogačnik will open at Moderna galerija, the museum of modern art, on Tuesday evening, offering an overview of Pogačnik’s 50-year work. Head of the museum Zdenka Badovinac stressed that this was not a classic retrospective but rather a “new work of art”.
According to Badovinac, “The Art of Life – The Life of Art” is very contemporary, like the artist himself.
Pogačnik said that the guiding star of his art was best described by the title of the exhibition itself, as he searches for weak points, the forgotten, the lost or the suppressed and directs his art there.
While the rational society denies the existence of invisible and subtle worlds, Pogačnik is interested in elementary beings and the nature’s awareness. The art for him is a constant search and direct engagement in life.
Curator Igor Španjol explained that the prevailing medium of the exhibition were drawings, while the exhibition followed three stages of Pogačnik’s work, the first presenting the artist’s work in the OHO group during 1965 and 1971.
His time in OHO group was followed by the founding of the Šempas Family, an agricultural and artistic commune that also functioned as a spiritual centre, and his cooperation with the VITAAA group and the LifeNet groups, with which he is installing Geopuncture Circles worldwide.
The exhibition moreover focuses on Pogačnik’s involvement in political processes, such as his protest against the Vietnam War in 1968 and his contribution to Slovenia’s independence with the designing of the country’s coat of arms.
The “Art of Life” is highlighted in Pogačnik’s efforts to heal the Earth with a technique he calls lithopuncture, and in his geomantic interpretations of individual places and regions.
The “Life of Art” topic meanwhile presents possible uses of the language of art in communicating with nature’s consciousness and in raising human awareness, both in relation to the multidimensionality of life and space, the museum says on its webpage.
Pogačnik, born in 1944, graduated at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 1967. He received the Jakopič Award, the highest national award for achievement in fine arts, in 2008.
sreda, 23. maj 2012
Maribor, 23. May (STA) – A puppet theatre for adults will tonight launch a series of events dedicated to the presentation of Israel at the European Capital of Culture in Maribor. The events include the launch of an anthology of contemporary Hebrew literature and the display of the famed Sarajevo Haggada.
“Paper Cut” is a puppet show by the young Israeli director and actress Jael Rasuli about a young lonely secretary who manages to escape the mundane reality by bringing black-and-white photographs from old magazines to life. The show will be staged at the Maribor Puppet Theatre late on Wednesday.
A different kind of photographs, portraying Israel’s urban development in the past hundred years will be put on display at the Photography Museum on Thursday under the title “Changes”.
The programme of the festival will continue next week at Town Hall with the screening of a documentary about Israeli writer Amos Oz, who visited Slovenia in March. The film shows how he grew up, his work, his reflections and determined efforts for peace, as well as selected events in Israel’s history.
A selection of literature written after the establishment of the state of Israel by authors whose political and social voice is still prominent today will be presented at the Maribor Synagogue at the end of the month at the launch of the anthology “En zu agada”, compiled and translated and selected by Klemen Jelinčič Boeta.
A puppet theatre for children combining the art of paper folding – origami, acting and story-telling will be staged at the Maribor Puppet Theatre in Early June. The show was conceived by Israeli artist Galia Levi-Grad and directed by Naomi Joeli.
The Israeli Cultural Embassy series will conclude in September with a display of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript that contains the illustrated traditional Jewish text setting forth the order of the Passover Seder.
The book, originating in Barcelona around 1350, recounts the story of the Jewish Exodus from Old Egypt. The display will mark the European Day of Jewish Culture.
ponedeljek, 14. maj 2012
Maribor, 8. May (STA) – German-Dutch performance and conceptual artist Ulay is opening an installation dubbed “Whose water is it?” in Maribor on Saturday as part of the city’s stint as the European Capital of Culture. The installation focusing on accessibility of water will be on display in and around Maribor’s Judgement Tower until October.
In cooperation with French art collective Societe Realiste, Ulay will set up a water tower made of 800 water bottles, which he has been collecting for over twelve years, and a neon sign with the title question of the installation, which will reflect on the Drava River.
The installation also includes a large iron plate collecting dripping water in a water tank in the upper floor of the venue and a heated metal surface for evaporating water at the bottom of the venue.
“The work represents the dualism of European culture, which separates matter from soul and good from evil,” the organising Institute Maribor 2012 explains.
As part of his half-year stay in Maribor as a resident artist of the European Capital of Culture, Ulay is also to prepare an interactive e-gallery “Earth Water Catalogue” of works of artists focusing on water.
Born in 1943 in Solingen, Germany, Uwe Laysiepen (better known under his artistic name Ulay) moved to Amsterdam in 1968, where he studied photography. He was among the leading representatives of body art and performance in the 1970s.
Ulay, whose recent work has mostly been focused on the issue of drinking water, now lives in Ljubljana, where he co-founded the NASTATI Institute in 2010.
torek, 13. marec 2012
Int’l Hugo Wolf Info Centre Inaugurated in Slovenj Gradec
An international information centre on Slovenian-born composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) was launched at his house in Slovenj Gradec on Tuesday along with a permanent display that features original documents that have not been presented to the public before.
The exhibition on the life and work of this late Romantic master of lieders is part of a bigger project that will also include a series of concerts and the first international competition in interpretation of Wolf’s lieders. The EUR 120,000 project is Slovenj Gradec’s contribution to this year’s European Capital of Culture.
“Today we are reviving the sounds of the past,” Brigita Rajšter, the director of the Koroško museum, which manages the Wolf collection, told a ceremony in Slovenj Gradec in a reference of the first in a series of events paying tribute to Wolf this year under the title “Revived Sounds of the Past”.
The permanent exhibition, mounted by the chairman of the Hugo Wolf Association Slovenj Gradec Marko Košan, shows eight stages of Wolf’s life with references to all important personages that influenced him.
Košan said that Wolf had long been pushed aside in Slovenian cultural identity, but that much changed in the late 1980s, especially after the composer’s Slovenian roots had been discovered by Wolf researcher Jože Leskovar.
Leskovar collected a lot of documents about the composer that are now on display at the Hugo Wolf Information Centre at his birth house in Slovenj Gradec, whose ambition is to become a meeting place for the many Hugo Wolf societies worldwide.
Apart from an archive and documents concerning the composer, the centre also comprises a reading room and a library. The collection includes recordings of Wolf’s compositions in various media, and there is also an audio and video hall and a concert hall at the centre.
The inauguration ceremony was addressed by the president of the International Hugo Wolf Association in Vienna Leopold Spitzer, who said that Wolf’s importance today was reflected in the high prices that documents related to him were fetching at auctions across the world.
He described Wolf as the most important composer of the second half of the 19th century, who introduced a new style of composing. He said that Wolf had a negative attitude to the country of his childhood as a result of the circumstances he lived in.
“He was in a way without a homeland, his homeland being the people who understood and respected him,” said Spitzer, adding that Wolf would have been happy to see how his musical heritage is being cherished in Slovenj Gradec today.
sreda, 7. marec 2012
Čater Believes Every Writer Gets His Turn in Slovenia
Writer Dušan Čater, whose collection of six stories dubbed “Džehenem” won him this year’s Fabula prize for the best collection of short stories, said in an interview with the STA that every award is welcome. He stressed few serious writers existed in Slovenia, which meant all writers in the country get their turn.
Touching on the title of his award-winning book, which is named after a bar in Sarajevo, Čater says that he went there “to write a novel about a Bosnian living in Slovenia, but it turned out that I failed to get down anything but the title there”.
He explains that, after he got home and read a novel on immigrants from former Yugoslavia “Čefurji Raus!” by Goran Vojnović, he realised that he would never be able to write that authentically.
After writing a story about a former Moldavian prostitute who moves to a small village, Čater decided to incorporate the two tales into a collection of stories about people who had moved to Slovenia.
Čater, who is known for good psychological profiling of his characters, says that he is more intrigued by somewhat difficult and exceptional characters, than by people who “get up at six and work until 2 PM”.
He believes that one cannot write about things one does not know well enough, but doubts that his characters are similar to him.
“It is more a thing of the narrative. I don’t even know if my heroes are funny by themselves. I try to write whimsically when I want to present a story, which by itself could be tragic, as maybe funny after all,” Čater notes.
While the six stories of “Džehenem” intertwine, pointing to the smallness of the Slovenian space, Čater says that “with me, many things happen by chance”.
“Maybe I really tried to show that…Slovenians are more of a tribe by making all the characters meet by some sort of chance,” he notes.
Invited to write a short story for a collection of works by Slovenian writers in focus of this year’s Fabula short story festival, Čater says that the task of writing a story with a happy ending proved somewhat difficult.
“I had a somewhat different ending in mind… I wanted to write a western in an environment full of huntsmen. Meaning that everybody goes to the local inn with a gun on their shoulder, making a gunfight a very likely possibility,” he adds.
Čater says that he comes from the generation that had been growing up in former Yugoslavia, explaining his ties to Croatia, where his debut novel “Flash Royal” from 1994 and “Ata je spet pijan” (Pops Is Drunk Again) from 2002 have also been published.
“Besides the geographic space, I’m also tied to former Yugoslavia by the language we used to speak, we have the same jokes,” he says, adding that he still has many friends all over the area.
Known as an author who does not embellish the reality, Čater wrote in 2009 a youth novel “Pojdi z mano” (Come with Me), which is his first novel written in third person, “more like a film”, because he was doing a lot of work for film at the time.
While his story about the Moldavian prostitute was already adapted for television, he believes that “some tales are made for literature, while scriptwriting requires a somewhat different genre”.
torek, 28. februar 2012
Čater Wins Fabula Short Story Prize
The Fabula prize for the best Slovenian collection of short stories from the past two years was handed out to Dušan Čater at a ceremony in Ljubljana’s Cankarjev dom, which marked the start of the Fabula 2012 literary festival on Monday evening. Čater was honoured for his collection of six stories entitled “Džehenem”.
According to the jury, the collection is flowing smoothly and is well-balanced. The author sews six stories together by building each story from a piece of the previous one. The first and the last image from the story thus conclude the circle.
Čater is very consistent both in terms of style and narration. “He is not going too deep into his characters but nevertheless perfectly outlines their psychological profile…the story is not too heavy on the reader but is in parts toned down with some subtle humour,” the jury said.
The author said that the title “Džehenem”, the Bosnian Muslim equivalent of the Arabic word Jahannam, meaning hell, was chosen by chance.
He said he had gone to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to write a novel, but after three months he wrote nothing but the title, which was the name of a coffee shop where he spend most of the time.
Addressing the event, the editor of the Študentska založba publisher, which organises the festival, said that 20 years ago it seemed that all stories had already been told and that nothing new could be said. Literature responded to this with a kind of post-modernist poetics, Aleš Šteger said.
However, today it seems that the situation is reversed. There are so many stories and images that an author must seriously consider how to respond, he added.
The publisher Dnevnik conferred the prize worth EUR 4,000 for the seventh time this year.
Čater won it against Miha Mazzini’s “Duhovi” (Ghosts), Uroš Sadek’s “Druge zgodbe” (Other Stories) and Nostalgija (Nostalgia) by Dušan Šarotar.
Last year the prize went to Lado Kralj for “Kosec koso brusi” (A Reaper Grinds His Scythe).
nedelja, 12. februar 2012
Studio DreamWorks načrtuje remake Hitchcockovega filma Rebecca
Studio DreamWorks in produkcijska hiša Working Title Films načrtujeta remake filma Rebecca režiserja Alfreda Hitchcocka. Scenarij bo po knjižni predlogi Daphne DuMaurier napisal Steven Knight, poroča filmska revija Variety.
torek, 7. februar 2012
A display of busts offering a glimpse into the history of Ljubljana through the faces of people who have left their mark on the political, economic and cultural life of the Slovenian capital will open at the City Museum tonight in its biggest exhibition project this year.
Some of the busts will be on public display for the first time, which is why the exhibition running under the title “Two Heads…from the City Museum Sculpture Collection…Are Better Than One” also provides a unique chance to look at the history of Slovenian sculpture.
The 59 busts, dating from Antiquity to recent history, include fine works by acclaimed Slovenian, Italian and Austrian sculptors. Some make part of permanent exhibitions in other institutions, but most are kept in the museum depot, where they will be returned as the show closes in December.
The author of the exhibition, Ane Pokrajac Iskra, divided the exhibits between those which are intended for public spaces – these display the person’s rank and power – and those which adorned intimate spaces, where emotions are the pronounced feature.
The City Museum mounted the exhibition in cooperation with members of the artist collective New Slovenian Collectivism, while a team of restorers had been at work for almost two years to prepare the busts for the display.
For a hands-on experience, the visitors will be able to touch a copy of the bust, feel the material and observe the techniques and phases of the making of the busts.
Several accompanying events include a round-table debate on 1 March at which experts will discuss the importance of the sculpture collection.
sreda, 1. februar 2012
Literary Translator Says Virginia Woolf Not Just Another Icon
Tina Mahkota, one of the three translators of “The Mark on the Wall – Collection of Short Stories by Virginia Woolf” says in an interview with the STA that the project of translating one of the key modernist literary figures of the 20th century involved a lot of work, but stresses that Woolf was worth it.
The translation by Mahkota, Breda Biščak and Jana Unuk was recently issued by Študentska založba in the Beletrina collection.
Mahkota, a literary translator from English and German and a daughter of legendary signer Marjana Deržaj (1936-2005), has been focusing in the last ten years mainly on plays and prose works by English, Scottish and Irish authors.
While Woolf is often being characterised merely on the basis of her essay “A Room of One’s Own”, her call for the economic independence of women, a glass of wine and a cigarette, Mahkota sees her as “an excellent, first-rate writer”.
She believes that labels such as a “legendary author” or an icon are often passed from generation to generation without people actually knowing the author’s work.
So far, all of Woolf’s masterpieces have been translated into Slovenian. “But it is interesting…that except for two of the works, they all have different translators.
“This leads you to think that Woolf exhausted them to the extent that nobody wanted to tackle her again,” Mahkota says in laughter.
But she almost gave up on her work too, faced with translating stories in which one cannot tell who the narrator is or whether they are a male or female, an information which is crucial for a translation into Slovenian.
“Sometimes I checked my translation in the German version, just to get a direction, to better understand things, only then could I deal with the wording in Slovenian.”
Mahkota, Biščak and Unuk each translated stories from one period of Woolf’s oeuvre – early stories, middle and late modernism. After each translated her part, they all discussed them together.
“The Mark on the Wall” features stories in chronological order from 1906, two years after Woolf started publishing short essays and reviews in various magazines, to “The Watering Place”, which is probably the very last literary text that she finished less then a month before her death in 1941.
The collection “gives us an insight into the incredible development of her writing genius and her commitment to constant experimenting with narrative forms”.
What all the stories have in common is the spotlight on women: daughters that are to be married, female writers, intellectuals, women from the upper class. This prompted Mahkota to opt for a female narrator when in doubt about the gender.
Mahkota strongly disagrees with the thesis that short stories were a kind of exercise for Woolf before writing novels. Her journals suggest that writing short stories was no minor thing for her. It is wrong to say that short stories only offer an insight into a micro lab of this great writer, Mahkota says.
Woolf’s humour is also often overlooked. “Virginia Woolf makes you, well not howl, but definitely giggle.”
She has this precise, lucid, ridiculing attitude. Some of her novels contain extremely fierce criticism presented in a very cultivated and sophisticated way.
Touching on Woolf’s life, the details of which continue to fascinate scholars, Mahkota says that the information she finds helpful in translating and understanding her work is that Woolf struggled with what would today be termed as bipolar disorder.
But she was also a very down-to-earth person. She enjoyed working at the publishing house The Hogarth Press, which she owned with her husband Leonard. “We mustn’t think she was determined by horrible suffering all the time.”
At the moment, Mahkota is preoccupied with one of Woolf’s contemporaries, James Joyce. It is not clear what Joyce though of Woolf, but she definitely read his works and at times had a positive and at times negative attitude towards him, Mahkota says. Hogarth Press for example rejected his manuscript of Ulysses.
Slovenian readers will be particularly interested in the letters Joyce wrote to his partner Nora, which Mahkota just translated, because he wrote them during the 12 years he spent in Trieste.
The letters reveal a whole range of feelings “from the initial infatuation, falling in love to his starting a family in Trieste, financial worries, creative blockades and inspirations up to uncontrolled erotics and sexuality.”
It is also interesting that for a long time the family did not wish the letters to be published.
Mahkota’s next project will be the new Slovenian translation of the “Dubliners”. “We have an old translation ‘Ljudje iz Dublina’ from the early 1960s by Herbert Grün. I think it is time for a new translation and the title will be ‘Dublinčani’.”
sreda, 25. januar 2012
Hungary to be Presented as Part of EPK in February
Several Hungarian artists will be presented in Maribor as part of the European Capital of Culture project (EPK) in February. The Hungarian Month of Culture, organised as part of the cultural embassies project, will kick off on 1 February with an exhibition of works by painter Victor Vasarely (1906-1997).
Hungary will be presented through ten art events, mostly dedicated to visual art. A literary seminar on Hungarian and Slovenian literatures will also be organised on 17 February at the Vetrinjski dvor house in the city centre.
The culture month will formally close with an exhibition of photography by Robert Kappa (1913-1954), which will be on display only in June at the Maribor art gallery due to space issues.
Hungarian Ambassador to Slovenia Istvan Szent-Ivanyi said he was happy that his country had gotten the opportunity to be presented in Maribor, one of the intellectual and cultural centres of Slovenia.
“We focused on non-verbal art and slightly less on literature, even though a literary seminar will also be organised. The focus is on fine art, photography, contemporary and classical music and contemporary dance,” Szent-Ivanyi said.
Among the highlights is also a concert by acclaimed pianist Gergely Boganyi, which is to take place on 7 February at the Union Hall.
Two days later an exhibition presenting porcelain factory Zsolnay from Pecs will open. Pecs is Maribor’s sister city which held the title of European Capital of Culture two years ago.
Coordinator of the cultural embassies project Jerneja Rebernak also underlined a concert by Baltic-Hungarian jazz quartet at the jazz club Satchmo on 4 February and an exhibition featuring photos of Budapest by ten acclaimed photographers opening three days later.
torek, 17. januar 2012
Illustrator Jelka Reichman Becomes Slovenian Woman of the Year
Readers of Slovenia’s oldest women’s magazine, Jana, have selected painter and illustrator Jelka Reichman the Slovenian Woman of the Year 2011. In her speech at Tuesday’s ceremony, Reichman said that every recognition came with a bit of doubt on whether it was justified, stressing that all the nominees were heroines.
After the ceremony in Ljubljana, which also marked the 40th anniversary of the magazine Jana, Reichman said she saw the award as a recognition coming from women, as she believes women were the ones who voted for her.
“I believe men don’t do that. Maybe if these were some football starts, then they might vote, but not for the Slovenian Woman of the Year, especially if she’s as old as me,” said the artist, who is best known for her illustrations of children’s books.
Asked about her work, Reichman said that she had foremost been drawing to the child within her. “I’ve been comforting myself, I’ve been drawing for myself but it was also for them,” she explained.
She believes her work for children brought her the award. “I think women are always somehow sensitive through children.”
The nominees included singer Maja Keuc, who represented Slovenia at last year’s Eurosong contest, skier Tina Maze, and Information Commissioner Nataša Pirc Musar.
Prior to the ceremony, the nominees had been received by President Danilo Türk and his wife Barbara Miklič Türk.
Last year the title was conferred on cross country star Petra Majdič, while the year before it went to then Interior Minister Katarina Kresal. The award has been conferred since 1988.
First Slovenian Cultural Centre Abroad Opens in Vienna
The first Slovenian cultural centre abroad, dubbed Skica, opened on Tuesday in Vienna, with the head of the centre Ana Novak stressing for the STA that Slovenia joined other European countries by opening Skica, which presents the opportunity for a greater recognition of Slovenian creativity.
Today’s opening at the Museum of Natural History of Vienna featured a presentation of the programme of the 2012 European Capital of Culture project.
Maribor, which holds the Culture Capital title this year, is very interesting to the people of Vienna due to its proximity, Novak said.
She moreover noted that public and other Vienna-based cultural institutions gained today a new partner through which they can boost their cooperation with Slovenian artists.
Skica will promote Slovenian culture, innovation and creativity in Austria, focusing on contemporary trends and the promotion of cooperation between Slovenian and Austria-based individuals and institutions in these areas, Novak explained.
According to her, Skica will boost the visibility of Slovenian creativity while striving to become an important part of the cultural and scientific milieu of the Austrian capital.
The centre’s main task for this year will be to promote the Culture Capital project through various activities, the Foreign Ministry has said.
The first events are already in sight, as Skica will host a literary evening with writer Florjan Lipuš on the eve of Slovenia’s Culture Day, 8 February and is organising an international photography exhibition by Slovenian curator Vasja Nagy.
Located at Korotan, a Slovenian-owned student dorm and hotel in the Austrian capital, Skica will function as part of Slovenia’s Embassy in Vienna, and will include an art studio and two apartments for artists and scientists.
Skica is also to serve as a model for the formation of Slovenia’s future centres abroad in capitals including Paris, Berlin and London.
petek, 13. januar 2012
A ceremony in Maribor’s central square, Trg Leona Štuklja, will officially turn Slovenia’s second largest city into the European Culture Capital 2012 on Saturday. The opening will also end months of agony in which organisers, pressured by financial and time constraints, struggled to live up to the high expectations.
Maribor, helped by five other partner cities, will be the first Slovenian city to host the culture capital project, which began in 1985 with Athens as the first bearer of the title.
A brainchild of former Greek Culture Minister Melina Mercouri (1920-1994), the concept seeks to promote the richness and diversity of European culture, and encourage mutual understanding and a shared European identity.
It has proved to be a strong tool for cultural development, changing cities by promoting local artists to the international public while also boosting local attendance of cultural events.
With the listed social criteria becoming ever more important in the selection of cities for the project – the other host this year is Portugal’s Guimaraes – the programming director of Maribor’s project since October 2010, Mitja Čander, recently said that culture capitals were no longer about stars but about how to engage the city and its people.
Economic aspects also play an important role. European Culture Commissioner Andrula Vasiliu has told the STA that some cities estimate that they received 8 euros in return for every euro invested. The number of overnight stays in the city increases by 12% on average.
The project also generates more attention for culture on the part of the media and politics, which is connected to money and often leads to cultural ambitions becoming diluted by politics.
Maribor turned out a case in point, as a lot of time that should have been spent on concrete preparations was wasted on who and how should run the project (and distribute funds).
The budgets of cultural capital cities, which can get EUR 1.5m in funds from the EU while the rest is provided by the municipalities and government, have varied greatly in the past, from EUR 5.5m for the programme in Reykjavik to EUR 58.6 in Lille; the average stands at around EUR 25m.
The programme in Maribor is estimated at around EUR 16m. “This is lavish funding, especially in these times of crisis,” the head of Ljubljana’s Cankarjev dom arts centre Mitja Rotovnik recently asserted.
However, Maribor is at the bottom of the list in terms of investments in cultural infrastructure, failing to follow the example of most other host cities, which made sure that the project would also leave a lasting mark in that respect.
Examples of such projects include the Kunsthaus and the Island in the Mur in Graz, Casa da Musica in Porto and Concertgebouw in Bruges, while expenditure for this purpose has ranged between EUR 7.8m in Bologna and EUR 233m in Thessaloniki.
In Slovenia, cultural capital investments in infrastructure include a renovation of the Park theatre in Murska Sobota, of the birth house of Hugo Wolf in Slovenj Gradec and of the Anton Podbevšek Theatre in Novo mesto. Additional projects, also to be funded with EUR 22m from the government, were planned but scrapped in the end.
Slovenia was picked for the project along with Portugal by the European parliament in 2005, with bids later filed by Ljubljana, Celje, and the coastal towns of Koper, Izola and Piran, as well as by Maribor in the company of the partner towns of Ptuj, Murska Sobota, Velenje, Slovenj Gradec and Novo mesto.
According to the architect of the Maribor initiative, Peter Tomaž Dobrila, the bid succeed because of the concept of the “networking” of six cities and the attempt to culturally awaken the east of the country, considered underdeveloped.
However, this very concept proved problematic once preparations got under way, as the partner municipalities felt neglected by Maribor and the latter by the Ljubljana-based government.
The project was perceived as overly ambitious – including by the commission in Brussels – from the very start, with EUR 50m planned for the programme and EUR 150m for investments in 2007 when the bid was filed and selected, which in turn led to extremely high expectations on the part of artists and the public.
The crisis led to a sober awakening and to the budged being cut down to EUR 16.5m for the programme, which consists of 412 projects divided into four segments.
“Terminal 12″ will feature flagship artistic projects, “Keys to the City” will be dedicated to reviving the Maribor city centre, “Urban Furrows” will focus on the environment and marginalised groups, while “Life and Touch” provides a digital dimension.
Maribor and Guimaraes, where the project will officially be launched on 21 January, were preceded by Turku in Tallinn, while it will be Marseille’s and Košice’s turn next year.
sreda, 11. januar 2012
Opera House Director Bets on Fusion of Old and New
A month after the Ljubljana opera and ballet house reopened following nearly six years of renovation, SNG Opera and Ballet director Mitja Bervar says in an interview with the STA that both ensembles are happy and enthusiastic about the future but also concerned, as many questions remain open, including the financial ones.
Bervar, who started his five-year term on 1 January 2010, inherited a debt of almost EUR 1m, but the company nevertheless increased its production by 55% in 2010.
This, of course, also raised the costs, but “I think it’s very important that we did that, because that way now that we got our house back we can just continue with the work”. “Otherwise we would need quite some time to get back on track in the artistic sense,” he explained.
The first priority now is to set up a system of work and adjust to the new facilities. The staff must get acquainted with the novelties, the equipment.
Asked whether the new facilities and equipment will enable the theatre to go beyond the 19th century from which it draws the mainstay of its programme, Bervar said that opera houses in other countries were also working on old operas when preparing their 21st century programme.
The opening performance a month ago was entitled “The Fusion of Centuries”, which is also the title of this year’s programme. This implies that the programme will be a fusion of the old and traditional with the new and modern, he explained.
“I think this is also what our work in the artistic sense will have to reflect. On the one hand we will have to preserve the tradition and the foundations and on the other we will have to be modern both in terms of technical equipment and artistic work.”
Elaborating on this, Bervar said that several contemporary pieces would be staged this year, starting with “Črne maske” (Black Masks), an opera written by Slovenian avant-garde composer Marij Kogoj (1892-1956), that will be staged as part of Maribor’s European Capital of Culture stint in cooperation with Maribor’s opera and ballet house this Sunday.
The next contemporary opera will be “Ljubezen kapital” (Love Capital). Similarly, contemporary ballet performances will include “Giselle” with a contemporary choreography and “Ples poezije” (Poetry Dance), a ballet dedicated to Ljubljana.
“On the other hand we will also be offering our classic repertoire, which includes “La Traviata”, “Nabucco”, “La Boheme”, which every house must have to give balance to its programme.”
Asked about the performances that will mark the company’s 120th anniversary, Bervar underlined a concert planned for the second half of the year, where the achievements of the opera and ballet house would be presented using the new capabilities of the stage and the equipment.
“We’ll try to show the opera in a different light than we did at the opening ceremony,” he added.
sreda, 4. januar 2012
Culture Capitals Guimaraes and Maribor to Join Forces
Carlos Martins, the executive director of the 2012 European Capital of Culture project in Portugal’s Guimaraes, has told the STA that Guimaraes will join forces with fellow title holder Maribor through Portugal’s cultural embassy in November and a project focused on the young and migrations.
Martins said that the Guimaraes 2012 institute, which presented the final programme on 14 December, divided the programme in four sections – Time for Gathering (January to March), Time for Creation (March to June), Time to Feel (June to September) and Time for Rebirth (September to December).
He noted that the opening would last for the entire week between 21 and 28 January, during which time different performances will open the various programme sections.
Quizzed about the programming principles, Martins said that the institute tried to include as many “premieres from both national and international artists, created in Guimaraes” as possible, while the inhabitants of the host city would participate as well.
“In 2012 Guimaraes plans 600 cultural events and 200 workshops based on the values of ‘City’, ‘Citizenship and Participation’ and ‘European dimension’,” he said.
What is more, Martins said that the share of local artists, producers and institutions was well balanced with that of the international artists. The budget also includes EUR 1m for a non-professional section of the project, he added.
Guimaraes 2012 moreover drafted the programme to promote the city through the promotion of “Portugal as the country that has a city which has what it takes to be a European Culture Capital”, he noted.
The institute will promote local and Portuguese artists by putting them face-to-face with foreign artists in panels focused on “what we are and what bonds the Europeans within all the European diversity”.
“Guimaraes aims to lead the debate about the role that small cities may have in European policies and the European agenda, as well as in the definition of development models in the context of a post-industrial economy,” Martins said.
Discussing the sustainability of the project, Martins noted that the majority of the programme was designed to continue in the future, including film festivals and other initiatives by local associations.
He also pointed to the four production networks – the Arts and Creativity Platform, the Media and Cinema Production Platform, the Curators Lab, and the Young Musicians Orchestra, as well as a professional theatre, that will remain after the end of 2012.
Martins said that all the infrastructure that was being developed for the project would continue operating after 2012, allowing “artists from all over the world to come to Guimaraes and be able to create and work here”.
He also noted that a number of industrial parts of the city had been revived, private as well as public spaces.
Martins believes that a perfect European Capital of Culture is the one “that makes the people think by provoking, shocking or even amazing both the public and the artists”, while he would like their project to contribute to Guimaraes’s urban, social and economic renewal.
“A perfect European Capital of Culture would be the one that can generate a new urban landscape,…a space that constantly offers new and surprising cultural and creative experiences,” he added.
Touching on the economic crisis, Martins said that they had to work very hard to maximise the impact of the Guimaraes 2012 initiatives. He said Portugal’s political stability allowed the institute to have “management autonomy”.
Quizzed about the public’s general sentiment towards the project, which is rather negative in Slovenia, Martins said that it was positive in Portugal.
“The Portuguese feel proud to host the European Capital of Culture. Critical voices always come up, but they are in a minority,” he said, adding that the institute had always tried to incorporate good ideas in order to improve the programme.
sobota, 31. december 2011
Maribor and its partner cities will host thousands of events as part of the 2012 European Culture Capital (EPK) project, which formally starts on 1 January but will be launched with a high-profile opening event in Maribor on 14 January.
Maribor, Murska Sobota, Slovenj Gradec, Velenje, Novo Mesto and Ptuj ave put together a programme featuring 412 projects that are divided into four sections.
“Terminal 12″ will focus on artistic highlights, “Keys to the Town” on urban revival, “Urban Furrows” on environmental and social projects, and “A Click to Life” on online events.
The project will be launched on the eve of the grand opening, when the culture embassies of more than 20 participating countries and the House of Architecture will open in Maribor.
The grand opening itself will feature a concert by Slovenian Dan D band, while European Culture Commissioner Andrula Vasiliu is also to attend.
On Sunday, 15 January, the SNG Maribor theatre will premiere “Črne maske” (Black Masks), an opera composed by Slovenian Marij Kogoj and directed by Janez Burger.
Maribor is the first Slovenian town to host the the European Capital of Culture since 1985, when Athens was given the title as the the first European Culture Capital.
The host city traditionally prepares a rich cultural programme, which has in recent years gained in social and economic importance.
Maribor was confirmed the 2012 European Capital of Culture in 2010 and will share the title with Portugal’s Guimaraes, which will hold the grand opening on 21 January.
sobota, 17. december 2011
Slovenia’s Maribor and Portugal’s Guimaraes officially took over the European Capital of Culture title from Estonia’s Tallin and Finland’s Turku at a ceremony in Turku on Friday. On Maribor’s behalf, the title was received by the director general of the Maribor 2012 institute Suzana Zilic Fiser.
The programming director of the institute Tallin 2011 Jaanaus Rohumaa and the head of the foundation Turku 2011 Cay Sevon handed over to their counterparts hand-made chains, which are symbols of the event, Maribor 2012 said in a press release.
The ceremony was addressed by Turku Mayor Aleksi Randell, who thanked to all who had contributed to culture making the life in his city better. Sevon added she was satisfied with the organisation of the event, which has been widely praised.
Representatives of both hosts of the European Capital of Culture in 2011 wished Maribor and Guimaraes a lot of success next year. Zilic Fiser said it was important that Turku had managed to raise awareness that culture could improve the wellbeing of people.
She is sure that Maribor is able to carry out the project. “There are no doubts now, because we have received the baton of the European Capital of Culture,” Zilic Fiser said, adding that Maribor 2012 was optimistic.
sreda, 14. december 2011
Commissioner: Culture Capital EU’s Most Ambitious Culture Project
The European Capital of Culture event is widely recognized as the European Union’s most ambitious cultural project and is also one of the best known and most appreciated by European citizens, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Androulla Vassiliou has said in an interview with the STA.
The success of many European Capitals of Culture reveals the high potential of the event in terms of economic and social development, she stressed, adding that an independent study has shown that 80% of people involved in organising culture capitals in different countries think it is the single most beneficial cultural event for cities.
Some culture capitals have estimated that each euro invested in the event generated an extra eight euros in return, while the number of overnight visitors increases on average by 12% and often much more, the commissioner noted.
European Capitals of Culture are aimed at promoting and celebrating Europe’s rich cultural diversity, as well as the shared aspects of its heritage, which in turn promotes mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue.
“The idea behind the Capitals of Culture is not to designate cities for their glorious past or their aesthetic appeal, but to award the title to the city with the most creative and innovative programme of cultural events for the year in which their country is hosting the event,” she pointed out.
According to Vassiliou, the European Capitals of Culture are also a unique opportunity to regenerate cities, to give new vitality to their cultural life, to give an impetus to their creativity, to improve their image and to make them better known on a European and international scale.
This boosts tourism and brings long-term cultural, social and economic benefits, not only for a city but also its surrounding region, she added.
Money, time, communication, independence and the competences of the organising team are crucial, but there is no successful culture capital without the enthusiasm of the public, she stressed, commenting on what makes a culture capital successful. “If the citizens are fully behind the project, it will be a success.”
Vassiliou said that Maribor, which will take over as European Culture Capital in 2012, is working hard. Like other Capitals, it has faced some difficulties in the preparation phase, which is quite common, she added.
“The main challenge is to live up to the commitments it made when the city was selected for the title, and also to do its best to ensure that the public really get behind the project,” she noted.
Asked about the future of the EU’s project, Vassiliou said the commission carried out a major public consultation this year and various evaluations in recent years, and debated the future of the initiative during the culture capital 25th anniversary conference last year.
A proposal is to be put forward next year on how to extend the initiative beyond 2019, when it expires under current arrangements. The proposal must then be confirmed by the European Parliament and the Council, she explained.
torek, 13. december 2011
Maribor to Host 22 Cultural Embassies During EPK
Maribor as the European Culture Capital in 2012 will host as many as 22 cultural embassies that will present their respective countries through cultural events, the Maribor 2012 institute said at a presentation of the programme to representatives of the participating countries in Maribor on Tuesday.
Ales Steger of Maribor 2012 said that cultural embassies had never before taken part in the European Culture Capital by contributing their own programmes.
“There are more than 100 events confirmed, including exhibitions, theatre plays, concerts, symposiums and a circus,” Steger said.
The organisers aim at changing the appearance of the town and making it internationally recognisable, as the “common idea is to establish as many ties between Maribor’s and partner cities’ institutions and artists and foreign artists and institutions”, he added.
The cultural embassies will open on 13 January, on the eve of the grand opening of the 2012 European Culture Capital project (EPK). Finland and Estonia, which hold the Culture Capital title this year, will be the first to present their programmes.
While the organisers wanted each country to have a month to present its culture, the high number of participants prevented it. Countries will now form their programmes in line with their abilities.
They added that this is also the first time that countries from outside the EU, such as Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Russia, Mexico and Japan, decided to participate.
Cultural Attache at the German Embassy in Slovenia Anke Popper told the STA that they joined the project, because they deemed it important, seeing how it helped the once-industrial Ruhr region, which won the title in 2010, shift its importance to the field of culture.
ponedeljek, 7. november 2011
Izide v tem tednu
V spodnjem seznamu opozarjamo na nekatere albume, ki bodo izšli v tem tednu.
Animals as Leaders: Weightless
Atlas Sound: Parallax
The Beatles: The Beatles with Tony Sheridan: First Recordings (50th Anniversary Edition)
Cass McCombs: Humor Risk
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Stage Whisper
Condemned: Realms of the Ungodly
David Lynch: Crazy Clown Time
DRC Music: Kinshasa One Two
Florence and the Machine: Ceremonials
Gold Panda: DJ-Kicks
Jacaszek: Glimmer
Joker: The Vision
Jonathan Coulton: Artificial Heart
Keep Shelly in Athens: Our Own Dream EP
King Krule: King Krule EP
King Midas Sound: Without You
Kurt Vile: So Outta Reach EP
Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo
Luke Roberts: Big Bells and Dime Songs
M+A: Things.Yes
Meshell Ndegeocello: Weather
Mustard Pimp: No Title or Purpose
Noel Gallagher: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Night In Gales: Five Scars
Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica
Owen: Ghost Town
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here - Immersion Box Set
Quilt: Quilt
R.E.M.: Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011
Rush: Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland
Sea Lions: Everything You Wanted To Know About Sea Lions but Were Afraid to Ask
Summer Camp: Welcome to Condale
This Moral Coil: This Mortal...