Peter Mlakar: Three Forms of the Absolute Evil

dublin | arts and media | event notice Friday April 23, 2004 16:24 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

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios – May 1st @ 7:30pm

The Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy is concerned with classical philosophical issues and their anomalies.

The Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy is concerned with classical philosophical issues and their anomalies. The main topics of investigations are the question of God, the essence and meaning of sexuality in relation to the absolute and evil. The Dept. of Pure and Applied Philosophy combines theonthology with psychoanalysis.

The Dublin performance will consist of two separate manifestations. The first is a lecture/sermon on Mlakar’s radical philosophical or theological conception of God. In the performance, Peter Mlakar will confront the audience with some new/old topics of the Absolute in relation to our contemporary world. This is made more interesting because of the Christian roots of the European Union on the day of enlargement of the Union and the associated problems with the new European Constitution.

The second is an artistic/philosophical performance on three forms of the absolute Evil. In the performance Mlakar will explore how this Evil could be manifested in the contemporary and real world. The performance is quite extreme in terms of sexuality, but it also fits the controversial psyche of religious Ireland and the basis of Christianity (Flesh-Pain-Enjoyment-God).

The representative for the philosophical branch of NSK is Peter Mlakar, a philosopher and writer. Peter Mlakar is best known for his speeches concerning religion and his very particular view on the manifestations of evil in our contemporary society.

His early speeches have been collated and published as REDEN AN DIE DEUTSCHE NATION (Speeches to the German Nation; Vienna: Verlag Turia & Kant, 1993). He has also published three philosophical works in the Slovenian language, SPISI O NADNARAVNEM (Essays on the Supernatural; Ljubljana: Analecta, 1992), UVOD V BOGA (An Introduction to God; Ljubljana: Zalozba NSK, 1997, and published in Croatian, Zagreb 2000), and HRIBI IN DOLINE (Hills and Valleys; Zalozba NSK, 1999).

As one might expect, Mlakar’s style is declarative and bombastic, but his form of rhetoric also illuminates existential conundrums of the sort that most people prefer not to be confronted with. In response to Essays on the Supernatural, a well-known Slovenian Catholic philosopher remarked that such a work “cannot be opposed with counter-argument, but only with prayer and fasting.”

As part of the large-scale NSK events taking place in Dublin during European Union Enlargement, The Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy performance will take place in Temple Bar Gallery & Studios on May 1st @ 7:30pm – Invitation Only.