EAST ART MAP INSTALLATION BY IRWIN ART GROUP IN PROJECT

dublin | arts and media | event notice Friday April 23, 2004 16:00 by Noel Kelly - The Art Projects Network press at artprojectsnetwork dot net The Art Projects Network, The Fire Station Artist Studios, Dublin 1 +353 86 2471114

Project Arts Centre, APRIL 30th 2004

IRWIN is an artistic project consisting originally of former Slovenian artistic underground figures. The group adopted the ideology of collectivism in its work - all projects are prepared jointly, the artists do not sign the artworks. Their massive use of the motifs, symbols and styles of the great artistic and political ideologies of the 20th century make their work resemble the Soviet avant garde, the Art of the Third Reich, religious iconography etc. IRWIN is a founding member of the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst).

Art & culture have historically possessed a central role within socialist and communist societies. The promoters of socialist and communist ideals considered themselves the descendents of the Enlightenment and Romanticism - therefore they considered art & culture to be central to any authentic socialist or communist society.

The former Yugoslavia occupied a special position within this supposition. Artistic and cultural workers were not restricted in the same way as their Soviet Bloc counterparts. Rather than living a life based upon the often-grey definition of Official and Unofficial artist, they were free to explore not only their own specific regional process, but also travelled internationally to experience the "western" art scene. This was based upon Tito's dictum of self-management.

In keeping with the theories of Marx, the official ideology of self-management praised art as the highest form of creativity. However, against the Marxist ideal, it simultaneously had to conceal the fact that it also claimed that art may have - and indeed must have - political consequence. To speak of society as a whole made up of interrelated social mechanisms that are based upon class antagonisms, then to speak of non-political art, pure science, non-ideological art history, becomes redundant.

After the fall of Tito this concealment came to an end. The resultant regime aligned itself more with the Soviet style structure of prescribed Social Realism, and in doing so caused the beginning of its own demise. Laibach Kunst challenged the regime and clearly claimed that ART IS POLITICS, AND ARTISTS ARE POLITICIANS.

IRWIN, in their current body of work continues to work upon this premise. But, rather than directly addressing the obvious political movements, they instead have chosen to represent a history of art movement that is unevenly and often inaccurately documented in the parts of Eastern and Central Europe that fell under these totalitarian regimes.
In their current body of work, IRWIN are working to draw up a map that will not try to provide detailed explanations of individual works of art and relations among them but will instead represent key events or artefacts that affected art in particular countries and their description. An interactive installation of the Dublin manifestation of EAST ART MAP will open in Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin 1 @ 6pm on April 30th and will run until May 5th.

IRWIN is an artistic project consisting originally of former Slovenian artistic underground figures. The group adopted the ideology of collectivism in its work - all projects are prepared jointly, the artists do not sign the artworks. Their massive use of the motifs, symbols and styles of the great artistic and political ideologies of the 20th century make their work resemble the Soviet avant garde, the Art of the Third Reich, religious iconography etc. IRWIN is a founding member of the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst).