City of Women: Eight artists: PEAK
Video performance (10′ in a loop) and installation of documentary material
In 2021, eight (women) artists blew up a replica of the Aljaž Tower in the Gabrovec quarry in collaboration with a certified blasting contractor. The explosion was a response to the increasingly nationalistic and conservative social climate in Slovenia. In a subversive move, the artists staged a fake terrorist action to question the current social situation.
Peak is a video performance on the meaning of a cultural heritage monument at a moment when it is being violently erased. It is an iconoclastic gesture, which is, by definition, the result of a revolt – most often against religious, political, or racial injustices. This gesture is multifaceted: on the one hand, it breaks with canonical thinking, on the other, the destruction of a symbol can re-establish that very symbol in a new, wider historical context.
In addition to the footage of the action projected on the big screen, there will be extensive documentation on the course of the action, all those involved, and all the complications.
At a time when society is becoming increasingly patriarchal and closed off, a strong artistic gesture is a necessity. – Eight artists
Art historian Noah Charney has written on the Peak in “From Virtual Terrorism Comes Unobjectionable Iconoclasm”. Read his essay.
In Slovenian.
Free admission.
Contributors: Boštjan Kačičnik, Igor Remeta, Teo Rižnar, Miloš Srdić, Jure Vlahovič; special thanks: Hannes (ex-Peng), Kristina Aleksova, Primož Bezjak, Stanko Bohnec, Žiga Brdnik, Vuk Ćosić, Jernej Čampelj, Petja Grafenauer, Sven Horvat, Slavica Janošević, Miha Knific, Gorazd Lemajič, Andrej Mahne, Tine Mazalović, Tibor Mihelič Syed, Domagoj Pajtak, Arjan Pregl, Gašper Tesner, Žiga Vrtačič, Hannah Wiemer, Irena Woelle, Grega Zemljič; production: New Post Office (Maska Institute and Mladinsko Theatre); co-production: City of Women; organisation: City of Women in co-operation with Old Power Station; support: Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Ljubljana, JSKD.
