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Jasmina Cibic

Nada: Act I

Vidéo | hdv | couleur | 10:9 | Slovénie, Royaume-Uni | 2016

Jasmina Cibic’s film trilogy NADA draws parallels between the construction of national culture and its use-value for political aims. The first chapter Nada: Act I fans out from a biographical thread of architect and artist Vjenceslav Richter, one of the key figures in charge of the visual representation of the Yugoslav state and his first and unrealized design for the Yugoslav Pavilion at the 1958 EXPO in Brussels. Cibic traced this architecture through archives and recreated the pavilion’s initial design as a musical instrument. In the film, a violinist constructs and continually tunes the instrument according to the Miraculous Mandarin, a musical composition for ballet written by Béla Bartók. This artwork was the one chosen to represent Yugoslavia at the most important dates of the pavilion itself “its National Days” whose role was to maximise the attention and the number of visitors. Paradoxically, this work was since its conception in 1917 marred by state censorship due to its explicit subject matter: a plot of a prostitute, her pimps and the client’s roles which Cibic recasts in the following chapters of Nada into characters of Mother Nation, politicians and the artist in charge of national presentation.

Jasmina Cibic works in performance, instalation and film, employing a range of activity, media and theatrical tactics to redefine or reconsider a specific ideological formation and its framing devices such as art and architecture. She represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with the project “For Our Economy and Culture”. Her recent solo exhibitions include Esker Foundation Calgary, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, MGLC Ljubljana and Ludwig Museum Budapest along with group exhibitions at Hessel Museum, Pera Museum Istanbul, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, La Panacee Montpellier, City Gallery Wellington, MSUM+ Ljubljana, MNHA Luxembourg. Her films have recently been screened at Biennial of Moving Image Buenos Aires, Pula Film Festival, HKW Berlin, CCA Laznia, Les Rencontres Internationales Paris, Dokfest Kassel and Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. Cibic has been nominated for the Jarman Award (2016), Golden Cube Award (Dokfest 2016) and won the MAC International Ulster Bank Award (2016) and best International Artist at the Kunsthalle Charlottenburg(2016). Cibic’s upcoming solo exhibitions include NN Contemporary, Crawford Art Gallery Cork, Aarhus 2017, BALTIC Gateshead, Krefeld Museum and DHC Art Montreal.