Dejan Grba (I - April 2001), Saša Nabergoj (II - April 2004)
A Conversation with Jurij Krpan
I
What were the beginnings of the Kapelica Gallery project?
In the 1980's the Ljubljana art scene was very lively. At the time various new forms of expression rocked the generally accepted and deeply embedded conviction that nothing can be changed. For example, Laibach was an explicitly new phenomenon for our cultural background and it introduced a serious reflection that could not be produced by the general society at the time, because there were no serious theoretical attempts, which would enable the conceptualisation of these problems. In the beginning of the 90's this state already became general and was in line with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc and former Yugoslavia. The University Union of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia was transformed into the Student Organisation of University of Ljubljana (ŠOU) which functioned as a model for the 'serious' social activities and which, amongst others, also became the service for supporting students and offering support to the student cultural scene.
During that period I organised exhibitions of the work by my friends and myself in my flat. The works that we exhibited mainly followed the line of apartment art which was at the time gaining on its legitimacy in our environment. While exhibiting these works in my flat and my architectural works in galleries I got acquainted with numerous artists whose projects demanded a much larger, more serious and more complex infrastructure than our premises could offer. At the time Kapelica was already present on the cultural scene, not as a gallery for contemporary art, but as a multi-purpose environment which (at the beginning of the 80's) hosted theatre plays and political gatherings (a few years later). Kapelica had a good image, but for most of the time it was unused, thus the Student Organisation asked me if I would we willing to work on the future projects and I accepted the offer.
The gallery identity was developed gradually, mainly through hosting artists who were not from Ljubljana, for the people in Ljubljana did not believe that the gallery would succeed. The scepticism shown by the Ljubljana artists derived from the status of the Student Organisation, which soon became unpopular (just as its predecessor). Thus, the public (at least at the beginnings) came merely to satisfy their curiosity or because the artists with whom I worked were very unusual for that period. To a certain extent the gallery program was also influenced by the architecture, for it was not suitable for normal exhibiting of two-dimensional art pieces. The way in which we set up the exhibitions was completely different from the procedures of the time - we worked together with the artists and adjusted the conditions in such a way as was necessary for the work. We pulled down walls, built new ones, intervened in the environment, etc. With this we protected the gallery space from being considered as a fetish. The audience that we gained was of course specific, even though through time the institution of excess that we have formed grew into a legitimate procedure and found its position.
Is it not true that it was already the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) that introduced the performance as an elaborated artistic form?
Basically, the NSK project was a classical one. Laibach prepared concerts which were, even though excellently performed, only concerts. The group IRWIN prepared more or less classical exhibitions. Dragan Živadinov staged theatre performances with a clear dramaturgy structure. NSK made these traditional forms of performances subversive by including their radical aesthetics, not by distancing themselves from the genre.
As a process the performance differs from a play, concert or exhibition mainly by the fact that it has the right to fail. If the performance fails, this is not necessarily bad. The performance is often also transformed during the performance itself. Performers operate with completely different material than the theatre. The practice of performance, which was only started in the 1960's and 70's in the form of research is today used as a well-developed form.
The projects that are supported by Kapelica are neither installations, nor exhibitions nor situations. Often there is nothing that could be seen and easily understood as an object. Through this we dissolve the phantasms that the artistic object has to be visible. The works mainly function as markers that influence the spectator to question and think. Kapelica mainly exhibits works that have a 'tactical' value. I often co-operate with people who do not have a traditional artistic background, however, they do have ideas or problems that need to be solved and shown.
In short, I am interested in dissolving the consumer illusion that art is merely another form of recreation. At this I have in mind the dichotomy between culture and art. The evaluation measures in culture are clear, thus culture is subject to repetition and routine, while art opens and moves boarders, which is why there are no clear criteria set for it and it is thus subject to passion. When the artist makes a creative breakthrough, we can say that he is acting in relation to the body of culture in the same way as 'better' acts towards 'good'. That is why one can find the following on our homepage: Art is the evil of culture - in the same way as 'better' is evil of 'good'. As soon as a certain artistic escape becomes 'clear', i.e. can be measured and certain criteria can be applied, it becomes a part of culture. Even though electronic pictures and non-interactive net-art belong in the field of new media, they are still placed amongst the traditional forms and are as such absurd, for they in fact do not differ from video or paintings on the wall.
You often emphasise the difference between ethic and aesthetic. What does this difference mean to you?
My thesis is that our perception apparatus has developed mainly due to television and film that we have learned to watch ever faster due to the procedure of editing, which is getting increasingly faster. A short piece of information is sufficient -we find it easy to place into context, however this fast piece of information comes together with the beautiful aesthetically pleasing everyday life. The visual environment is contaminated with various contents and the imperative for beauty is already embedded in our life through advertisements, which describe what are we supposed to look like. An advertisement billboard is in fact an ideal gallery: the format is large, it can be viewed 24 hours a day, it has the best positions in town and is thus a metaphor for our consumer society which communicates with individuals through 'beautiful' pictures and pushes aside anything that does not belong into its aesthetic discourse.
Which ideological discourse stands behind the imperative that we have to be beautiful, desirable, well adjusted and carry a smile on our faces? This is mainly a consumer imperative, which divides society into various target groups, in which there is no more talk about the individual. Instead, it includes only statistical common features. Multinational companies form the consumer society with the system of a virtual world of aesthetics, which includes and defines us. However, people are most often not aware of its sublime message. I think that the way in which the individual can fight this system is not the normal 'Don Quixote' struggle, rather, he has to create his own position within the system and create a conscious relation towards it. There are various procedures for the individual to wake up or at least be startled from his semi-conscious condition. This can be performed with the intrusion of the real or with the shock technique. One of the gallery methods is the interactive method, i.e. an exhibition that is set up in such a way that it depends exclusively upon the visitor and is not given as a closed whole. The second way is for the visitor to realise his position and the relation towards the exhibition, already while he is there. This is similar to the concept of physical contact with sound which is at the Laibach concerts (for instance) so loud that it creates a feeling of discomfort for the audience. Thus we can discuss the physical contact with a picture. Of course the aesthetics are in this case under a question mark, but ethics is not the opposite of aesthetics, it is merely a suggestion of disapproving with the sublimated norm - it goes straight ahead, regardless of the norms, i.e. general morals.
With artists we can often observe that they monitor a problem, they try to solve it, but during this process they often stop and sublimate some sort of rules of aesthetics, gallery norms or restrictions by the world of art that have to be broken and not accepted. I am of the opinion that it is not of key importance to go into a genre, it is more important to focus on the incident, the event, which encourages the monolith and formed understanding of the world. Whoever 'knows what is art' is my enemy, who should be attacked with all forces and whose standpoints should be undermined from all angles.
The problem in the relation between ideology and the perception of reality, which you talked about before, occurs because the perception of reality is a product of ideology. Setting oneself at a distance from the illusion of reality can thus be changed into ideology.
I am not talking about keeping a distance, but about confrontation. As soon as somebody sets his reflexive procedures he has fallen into an ideology. I am interested, and this is what I try to draw the attention of artists to, in a sort of an open structure, which is not packaged into recipes and procedures and is not descriptive. A traditionally rounded up work of art can be interesting in numerous ways, but it does not provoke the spectator - it is a story about a problem, while the problem itself has disappeared. I am interested in art, which places the spectators directly in front of a problem, without dealing with some superfluous issues. In this sense ethics are not nice - the ethical imperative moves towards 'truth', without taking anything into account. Morals are in opposition and a surrogate to aesthetics - they include the environment and stop when they reach the cultural milieu.
How is your attitude towards art shown in your co-operation with artists?
The special communal function which I have because I work within a gallery, gives me the legitimacy (as well as the responsibility) to create the best possible conditions for the realisation of the program. I insist on this and I will not budge, it is a responsibility. If I notice that somebody merely wants to keep to the form - just to make an exhibition, in the sense of anything goes - this is not enough for me.
I demand from the artist that he explains why he wants to show something and if I notice anything in his motivation that could be explored into greater detail, I divert his attention to this and orient the discussion in that direction. A line of young artists used me as a type of organiser and I can actually help them with this. They often bring me half made, raw materials or just ideas which we test and work on together, the technical realisation in the gallery environment being merely a part of this process and not always the end. Often the projects keep developing during the opening or even after it, thus we sometimes also take care of the closing of the exhibition. It is not even necessary for the project to end at all, at least not until it remains opening new questions that encourage thought.
I am interested in the open gallery institution that functions as a workshop and co-operates with the artist. The audience is slowly beginning to understand that the issue of authorship is mainly an issue brought forth by the art market which tries to sell the artist and not the work of art. Kapelica deals with works of art and not artists.
A series of works exhibited in the Kapelica Gallery is dedicated to the subject of the body. What is your attitude towards this practice?
The body is a theme that speaks a universal language - everybody has a body and everybody has problems with it. This is a gigantic field that cannot be thought about it in its entirety, one can comprehend it merely partially. To think about life outside the body is a concept that is only emerging and it is interesting to observe how the various levels of consciousness function as regards the body. In this context the materials with a sexual thematic have the broadest and most numerous audience in Kapelica and the more the issue of the body is layered and divided the lesser becomes the acceptance of the public.
How do you see the problem of genetic manipulation and the issues that arise from this?
It is obvious that we live on a planet that is slowly going to hell and that all the stupidities that we have done (chemical and electromagnetic pollution, holes in the ozone layer, etc.) will undoubtedly influence our genetic material. That is why we can assume that natural procreation will become too risky and that genetic science will become a necessary tool for monitoring future reproduction. In order for it not come to the stage where genetics would be abused, art has to show the consequences of such manipulation - from repairing to reproducing genes. But genetics (medical science) is not the only monolith system of power that should be deconstructed. Religion and, of course, the military are also such systems.
What about multinational corporations?
These represent the plague of the 21st Century and are an important theme. I am interested in the co-operation with artists who work on increasing the consciousness of the media monopoly at creating and forming the public opinion, as well as those artist who try to undermine this monopoly. A while ago I came across somebody who has in his possession (illegal) equipment, which enables him to intrude into television frequencies and an artist who is willing to do something with this medium. I will try my best to organise some way in which Kapelica will be able to help him. This is a way in which also Marko Pelhan co-operated with his work Microlab at the last Kassel Documenta in which he scanned (listened into) and recorded satellite communications. Legally, this was a very delicate process, for he had to sign a contract that bound him not to scan certain satellites. Of course he did not leave these ones out.
The power of the multinational capital functions through a special conspiracy without any conspirators. It silently defines our world in which it is hard, if at all possible to be subversive. Can this be replied to by a new form of cultural terrorism that would be extremely non-transparent and clever in order to take advantage of the existing technological restrictions while at the same time be understood by the broader public?
This is most definitely an imperative that is possibly unachievable, because any subversion is already a part of the dominant ideological constructs. This is why I would not place such a great emphasis on the results, I would prefer to try and focus on the creation of the consciousness and positioning of the individuals within the existing structures.
Currently I cannot see the possibility for creating such an artistic process, mechanism or action that would lead to the fall of the system of power. Maybe this is merely a utopia. Frederic Jameson said that people today find it much easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the capitalist production system.
I think it is necessary to pay attention to the changes in our consciousness at the beginning and this is a great task. Insisting on the final goal could be dangerous, especially if we think of one of the main characteristics of the ideology practices, which is that the systems with power anticipate and create their 'enemies', thus making it easier for them to remain under control. It is because of this that I think that today the decorative two-dimensional picture carriers are no longer conjunctive. When painting emerged it created a new virtual space for the transfer of spiritual (religious) contents, which was until then possible only on the level of speech and this was the moment in which visual arts became subversive. Today all of our lives take place in a virtual world of pictures and views, which are totally overcome by the consumer's imperative.
This confirms the idea that art as a deviation from the normal perception of the world has a limited shelf life that seems to be very short today. The belief in art that becomes unstoppably immune as time passes by, regardless of its form or strategy, can thus work, to put it as mildly as possible, merely as an illusion.
Well, we cannot expect from every artist that he will offer a total 'sacrifice'. In fact this is not even necessary. As far as I am concerned, it is legitimate for the artist to enter the establishment through that authentic creative move which he has created with his work. This is similar to philosophy in which all discourses are present from the ancient ones onwards, yet it is still developing. Every artist has the right to market the results of his work, but it is not necessary for us in Kapelica to be interested in this - this can take place in other galleries and be consumed by a different public. This is most certainly a type of my cynicism, but I by no means live in a conviction that everybody has to practice the same models of artistic practice - this would be pure fascism. The fall from art to culture is a part of the natural process, but regardless of this I can still admire those artists who manage to stubbornly avoid this fall. One of these artists is Stelarc, even though he is extremely well paid.
Is there a risk that Kapelica Gallery and the things it stands for would become a sort of an establishment?
At a certain moment the things we stand for will most definitely become an establishment as far as the genre is concerned. This is why the Kapelica homepage states that the works and projects that we present are the 'classics of the future'. However, I have to admit that I have not yet thought of a way of implementing the analysis that we are discussing in an ideological discourse and thus compromise it. The process is still too fresh, exciting and surprising to raise this issue.
II
What were the beginnings of the Kapelica Gallery project?
In the 1980's the Ljubljana art scene was very lively. At the time various new forms of expression rocked the generally accepted and deeply embedded conviction that nothing can be changed. For example, Laibach was an explicitly new phenomenon for our cultural background and it introduced a serious reflection that could not be produced by the general society at the time, because there were no serious theoretical attempts, which would enable the conceptualisation of these problems. In the beginning of the 90's this state already became general and was in line with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc and former Yugoslavia. The University Union of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia was transformed into the Student Organisation of University of Ljubljana (ŠOU) which functioned as a model for the 'serious' social activities and which, amongst others, also became the service for supporting students and offering support to the student cultural scene.
During that period I organised exhibitions of the work by my friends and myself in my flat. The works that we exhibited mainly followed the line of apartment art which was at the time gaining on its legitimacy in our environment. While exhibiting these works in my flat and my architectural works in galleries I got acquainted with numerous artists whose projects demanded a much larger, more serious and more complex infrastructure than our premises could offer. At the time Kapelica was already present on the cultural scene, not as a gallery for contemporary art, but as a multi-purpose environment which (at the beginning of the 80's) hosted theatre plays and political gatherings (a few years later). Kapelica had a good image, but for most of the time it was unused, thus the Student Organisation asked me if I would we willing to work on the future projects and I accepted the offer.
The gallery identity was developed gradually, mainly through hosting artists who were not from Ljubljana, for the people in Ljubljana did not believe that the gallery would succeed. The scepticism shown by the Ljubljana artists derived from the status of the Student Organisation, which soon became unpopular (just as its predecessor). Thus, the public (at least at the beginnings) came merely to satisfy their curiosity or because the artists with whom I worked were very unusual for that period. To a certain extent the gallery program was also influenced by the architecture, for it was not suitable for normal exhibiting of two-dimensional art pieces. The way in which we set up the exhibitions was completely different from the procedures of the time - we worked together with the artists and adjusted the conditions in such a way as was necessary for the work. We pulled down walls, built new ones, intervened in the environment, etc. With this we protected the gallery space from being considered as a fetish. The audience that we gained was of course specific, even though through time the institution of excess that we have formed grew into a legitimate procedure and found its position.
Is it not true that it was already the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) that introduced the performance as an elaborated artistic form?
Basically, the NSK project was a classical one. Laibach prepared concerts which were, even though excellently performed, only concerts. The group IRWIN prepared more or less classical exhibitions. Dragan Živadinov staged theatre performances with a clear dramaturgy structure. NSK made these traditional forms of performances subversive by including their radical aesthetics, not by distancing themselves from the genre.
As a process the performance differs from a play, concert or exhibition mainly by the fact that it has the right to fail. If the performance fails, this is not necessarily bad. The performance is often also transformed during the performance itself. Performers operate with completely different material than the theatre. The practice of performance, which was only started in the 1960's and 70's in the form of research is today used as a well-developed form.
The projects that are supported by Kapelica are neither installations, nor exhibitions nor situations. Often there is nothing that could be seen and easily understood as an object. Through this we dissolve the phantasms that the artistic object has to be visible. The works mainly function as markers that influence the spectator to question and think. Kapelica mainly exhibits works that have a 'tactical' value. I often co-operate with people who do not have a traditional artistic background, however, they do have ideas or problems that need to be solved and shown.
In short, I am interested in dissolving the consumer illusion that art is merely another form of recreation. At this I have in mind the dichotomy between culture and art. The evaluation measures in culture are clear, thus culture is subject to repetition and routine, while art opens and moves boarders, which is why there are no clear criteria set for it and it is thus subject to passion. When the artist makes a creative breakthrough, we can say that he is acting in relation to the body of culture in the same way as 'better' acts towards 'good'. That is why one can find the following on our homepage: Art is the evil of culture - in the same way as 'better' is evil of 'good'. As soon as a certain artistic escape becomes 'clear', i.e. can be measured and certain criteria can be applied, it becomes a part of culture. Even though electronic pictures and non-interactive net-art belong in the field of new media, they are still placed amongst the traditional forms and are as such absurd, for they in fact do not differ from video or paintings on the wall.
You often emphasise the difference between ethic and aesthetic. What does this difference mean to you?
My thesis is that our perception apparatus has developed mainly due to television and film that we have learned to watch ever faster due to the procedure of editing, which is getting increasingly faster. A short piece of information is sufficient -we find it easy to place into context, however this fast piece of information comes together with the beautiful aesthetically pleasing everyday life. The visual environment is contaminated with various contents and the imperative for beauty is already embedded in our life through advertisements, which describe what are we supposed to look like. An advertisement billboard is in fact an ideal gallery: the format is large, it can be viewed 24 hours a day, it has the best positions in town and is thus a metaphor for our consumer society which communicates with individuals through 'beautiful' pictures and pushes aside anything that does not belong into its aesthetic discourse.
Which ideological discourse stands behind the imperative that we have to be beautiful, desirable, well adjusted and carry a smile on our faces? This is mainly a consumer imperative, which divides society into various target groups, in which there is no more talk about the individual. Instead, it includes only statistical common features. Multinational companies form the consumer society with the system of a virtual world of aesthetics, which includes and defines us. However, people are most often not aware of its sublime message. I think that the way in which the individual can fight this system is not the normal 'Don Quixote' struggle, rather, he has to create his own position within the system and create a conscious relation towards it. There are various procedures for the individual to wake up or at least be startled from his semi-conscious condition. This can be performed with the intrusion of the real or with the shock technique. One of the gallery methods is the interactive method, i.e. an exhibition that is set up in such a way that it depends exclusively upon the visitor and is not given as a closed whole. The second way is for the visitor to realise his position and the relation towards the exhibition, already while he is there. This is similar to the concept of physical contact with sound which is at the Laibach concerts (for instance) so loud that it creates a feeling of discomfort for the audience. Thus we can discuss the physical contact with a picture. Of course the aesthetics are in this case under a question mark, but ethics is not the opposite of aesthetics, it is merely a suggestion of disapproving with the sublimated norm - it goes straight ahead, regardless of the norms, i.e. general morals.
With artists we can often observe that they monitor a problem, they try to solve it, but during this process they often stop and sublimate some sort of rules of aesthetics, gallery norms or restrictions by the world of art that have to be broken and not accepted. I am of the opinion that it is not of key importance to go into a genre, it is more important to focus on the incident, the event, which encourages the monolith and formed understanding of the world. Whoever 'knows what is art' is my enemy, who should be attacked with all forces and whose standpoints should be undermined from all angles.
The problem in the relation between ideology and the perception of reality, which you talked about before, occurs because the perception of reality is a product of ideology. Setting oneself at a distance from the illusion of reality can thus be changed into ideology.
I am not talking about keeping a distance, but about confrontation. As soon as somebody sets his reflexive procedures he has fallen into an ideology. I am interested, and this is what I try to draw the attention of artists to, in a sort of an open structure, which is not packaged into recipes and procedures and is not descriptive. A traditionally rounded up work of art can be interesting in numerous ways, but it does not provoke the spectator - it is a story about a problem, while the problem itself has disappeared. I am interested in art, which places the spectators directly in front of a problem, without dealing with some superfluous issues. In this sense ethics are not nice - the ethical imperative moves towards 'truth', without taking anything into account. Morals are in opposition and a surrogate to aesthetics - they include the environment and stop when they reach the cultural milieu.
How is your attitude towards art shown in your co-operation with artists?
The special communal function which I have because I work within a gallery, gives me the legitimacy (as well as the responsibility) to create the best possible conditions for the realisation of the program. I insist on this and I will not budge, it is a responsibility. If I notice that somebody merely wants to keep to the form - just to make an exhibition, in the sense of anything goes - this is not enough for me.
I demand from the artist that he explains why he wants to show something and if I notice anything in his motivation that could be explored into greater detail, I divert his attention to this and orient the discussion in that direction. A line of young artists used me as a type of organiser and I can actually help them with this. They often bring me half made, raw materials or just ideas which we test and work on together, the technical realisation in the gallery environment being merely a part of this process and not always the end. Often the projects keep developing during the opening or even after it, thus we sometimes also take care of the closing of the exhibition. It is not even necessary for the project to end at all, at least not until it remains opening new questions that encourage thought.
I am interested in the open gallery institution that functions as a workshop and co-operates with the artist. The audience is slowly beginning to understand that the issue of authorship is mainly an issue brought forth by the art market which tries to sell the artist and not the work of art. Kapelica deals with works of art and not artists.
A series of works exhibited in the Kapelica Gallery is dedicated to the subject of the body. What is your attitude towards this practice?
The body is a theme that speaks a universal language - everybody has a body and everybody has problems with it. This is a gigantic field that cannot be thought about it in its entirety, one can comprehend it merely partially. To think about life outside the body is a concept that is only emerging and it is interesting to observe how the various levels of consciousness function as regards the body. In this context the materials with a sexual thematic have the broadest and most numerous audience in Kapelica and the more the issue of the body is layered and divided the lesser becomes the acceptance of the public.
How do you see the problem of genetic manipulation and the issues that arise from this?
It is obvious that we live on a planet that is slowly going to hell and that all the stupidities that we have done (chemical and electromagnetic pollution, holes in the ozone layer, etc.) will undoubtedly influence our genetic material. That is why we can assume that natural procreation will become too risky and that genetic science will become a necessary tool for monitoring future reproduction. In order for it not come to the stage where genetics would be abused, art has to show the consequences of such manipulation - from repairing to reproducing genes. But genetics (medical science) is not the only monolith system of power that should be deconstructed. Religion and, of course, the military are also such systems.
What about multinational corporations?
These represent the plague of the 21st Century and are an important theme. I am interested in the co-operation with artists who work on increasing the consciousness of the media monopoly at creating and forming the public opinion, as well as those artist who try to undermine this monopoly. A while ago I came across somebody who has in his possession (illegal) equipment, which enables him to intrude into television frequencies and an artist who is willing to do something with this medium. I will try my best to organise some way in which Kapelica will be able to help him. This is a way in which also Marko Pelhan co-operated with his work Microlab at the last Kassel Documenta in which he scanned (listened into) and recorded satellite communications. Legally, this was a very delicate process, for he had to sign a contract that bound him not to scan certain satellites. Of course he did not leave these ones out.
The power of the multinational capital functions through a special conspiracy without any conspirators. It silently defines our world in which it is hard, if at all possible to be subversive. Can this be replied to by a new form of cultural terrorism that would be extremely non-transparent and clever in order to take advantage of the existing technological restrictions while at the same time be understood by the broader public?
This is most definitely an imperative that is possibly unachievable, because any subversion is already a part of the dominant ideological constructs. This is why I would not place such a great emphasis on the results, I would prefer to try and focus on the creation of the consciousness and positioning of the individuals within the existing structures.
Currently I cannot see the possibility for creating such an artistic process, mechanism or action that would lead to the fall of the system of power. Maybe this is merely a utopia. Frederic Jameson said that people today find it much easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the capitalist production system.
I think it is necessary to pay attention to the changes in our consciousness at the beginning and this is a great task. Insisting on the final goal could be dangerous, especially if we think of one of the main characteristics of the ideology practices, which is that the systems with power anticipate and create their 'enemies', thus making it easier for them to remain under control. It is because of this that I think that today the decorative two-dimensional picture carriers are no longer conjunctive. When painting emerged it created a new virtual space for the transfer of spiritual (religious) contents, which was until then possible only on the level of speech and this was the moment in which visual arts became subversive. Today all of our lives take place in a virtual world of pictures and views, which are totally overcome by the consumer's imperative.
This confirms the idea that art as a deviation from the normal perception of the world has a limited shelf life that seems to be very short today. The belief in art that becomes unstoppably immune as time passes by, regardless of its form or strategy, can thus work, to put it as mildly as possible, merely as an illusion.
Well, we cannot expect from every artist that he will offer a total 'sacrifice'. In fact this is not even necessary. As far as I am concerned, it is legitimate for the artist to enter the establishment through that authentic creative move which he has created with his work. This is similar to philosophy in which all discourses are present from the ancient ones onwards, yet it is still developing. Every artist has the right to market the results of his work, but it is not necessary for us in Kapelica to be interested in this - this can take place in other galleries and be consumed by a different public. This is most certainly a type of my cynicism, but I by no means live in a conviction that everybody has to practice the same models of artistic practice - this would be pure fascism. The fall from art to culture is a part of the natural process, but regardless of this I can still admire those artists who manage to stubbornly avoid this fall. One of these artists is Stelarc, even though he is extremely well paid.
Is there a risk that Kapelica Gallery and the things it stands for would become a sort of an establishment?
At a certain moment the things we stand for will most definitely become an establishment as far as the genre is concerned. This is why the Kapelica homepage states that the works and projects that we present are the 'classics of the future'. However, I have to admit that I have not yet thought of a way of implementing the analysis that we are discussing in an ideological discourse and thus compromise it. The process is still too fresh, exciting and surprising to raise this issue.