press
Fundus ZS PP / The Repository WUST
AMFITEATER, Spring 2011, Beti Žerovc(...) The field of visual arts allows theatre performers to sporadically tour with formally very different works and projects ("non-performances"). An example of this are projects by Barbara Novakovič, which are often somehow borderline, visual-theatrical; in a certain period she also did very extensive and demanding installations. In her works there are visible references to both fields, and the artist herself and her works belong to both spheres. The author, who studied sociology and art history, as well as acting, is special in the framework of this discussion because of her interest in museums and their logic which she often introduces as themes into numerous segments of her work. For example, in 2009 the central theme of performance Repository, she was co-author of and was performed in Jakopič gallery, was an actual museum repository, a storage; in Repository the opening of an exhibition took place during the performance.
The article before publication on the topic of hybrid spaces
Beti Žerovc, Ph.D. in art history, researcher and theorist
Večer, April 6, 2010, Taja Kordigel
Performance that lasts
"The performance starts as a theatrical piece and later gradually morphs into an exhibition opening. Afterwards, it concludes again with the conversation between the audience and the two guards who play the role of the guides through the exhibition at the end of the performance." Are the exhibits tied to the two performers or to the space in which the performance is happening? "The opening night of the performance took place in Jakopič gallery in the collaboration with the City Museum Ljubljana. 45 artefacts were thus borrowed from the repository of the City Museum. The performance with the exhibition begins to tour and travel and its content transforms along the way. However, the performance travels also through its changing in time. Not only because of different spaces but also because of contemporary artists who participate in the performance. For with their works they somehow remain, but the artefacts themselves change." And what does that mean concretely for the next staging? "When the performance will be touring again and if it will be staged in a theatrical space the repository might be replaced by a theatre storage in which old performances, old photographs, props, the photographs of older performances come to light. It will be a part of a whole, just like in our lives where a certain constant remains: there are things that we simply remember. A part of the exhibited works of art thus remains remembered, therefore this space emphasises guarding and preserving and is inhabited by guards, performers."
And where did the idea for such an abstract performance come from? Barbara Novakovič: "I have mainly researched the connection between the theatre and visual arts. This is somehow linked to the fact that my profession is directing and producing theatre performances, but on the other hand I am also a curator. This is a way that is also always present in every contemporary space, only it does not pass simultaneously but consecutively. Here it is set in simultaneousness. First, the performance is to be staged, and then we move into setting - an exhibition with interactive moments that we are accustomed to. If we put this together moments that are closer to research theatre or visual research happen."
Exhibits and artefacts which have not been exhibited so far
At the end of the performance the audience does not applaud the performers, which would among other things also signify going home, however, before the end the artists ask them to leave their seats and take a look at the exhibits that were carefully covered with white sheets during the performance. When this happens they use the sheets to cover the seats the audience sat on until then. And when does the performance actually end? Barbara Novakovič: "The performance lasts as long as people are interested in what the space has brought with the uncovering of the artefacts. If a spectator is a big art lover and if the exhibits and artefacts have not been exhibited before, the performance might last longer."
