Škuc Gallery

Škuc Gallery has been operating on the premises at 21 Stari trg in Ljubljana since 1978 as part of the ŠKUC Cultural Centre. In these years of operation, Škuc Gallery has become a prominent international art centre for exhibitions, different art events, publishing and documentation.

At the end of the 1970s, the foundation of Škuc Gallery was meant as a counterpart to the dominant exhibition policy of the established national galleries and institutions in Slovenia. Its first artistic director was the art historian and curator Taja Vidmar Brejc and it opened with a retrospective presentation of the conceptual art group OHO.

In the eighties, under new artistic directors (Dušan Mandić, Marina Gržinić, Barbara Borčić), Škuc Gallery became the centre of (sub)culture in Slovenia, and thus even aggravated its relationship with governmental institutional culture. The characteristics of this period were multi-media projects, presentations of conceptual art movements in Zagreb and Belgrade (Raša Todosijević, Mladen Stilinović, Goran Djordjević, for instance), and the first projects of now established Slovene artists including IRWIN, V.S.S.D., Bojan Gorenec and Marjetica Potrč.

At the turn of the last decade, Tomislav Vignjević and Alenka Pirman as artistic directors were confronted with the history of Škuc Gallery and its indisputable reputation as an elitist alternative space. The selection of annual programmes was opened to various artistic positions, and based on the following areas: first solo exhibitions of young Slovene artists; solo exhibitions (or projects outside the Gallery) by established Slovene artists; solo exhibitions (or projects outside the Gallery) by international artists; thematic and group exhibitions of guest curators, and socio-cultural documentary exhibitions. From 1996-2003, Gregor Podnar was the artistic director of the Gallery, and in June 2003 Alenka Gregorič was appointed to this position. In October 2009, Tevž Logar was appointed as the artistic director responsible for the programme, and he partly continued with the established programme guidelines, while introducing innovations. The directorship of the gallery was then taken over by Vladimir Vidmar in January 2014. From January 2020 the artistic director of Škuc Gallery is Tia Čiček.

Over the last couple of decades, Škuc Gallery has become one of the most visited exhibition premises in Slovenia, with approximately 1,000 visitors per exhibition on average. The focus on regional and local developments represents a significant segment of the Gallery’s programme, but at the same time the involvement in the international cultural industry has become a growing part of the daily routine. We have decided to establish a closer co-operation with institutions and individuals working in the region including art centres in Austria, Croatia, Hungary and Italy, which provides a wider theoretical framework for our curatorial work. Škuc Gallery has developed into an art production centre and since 2000 it has also started to represent its artists at international art fairs.

During the last few years, the following internationally working artists were presented in the Gallery: Bas Jan Ader, Ingold Airlines, Rasheed Araeen, Jože Barši, Raimond Chaves, Attila Csörgő, Tacita Dean, Leif Elggren, Olafur Eliasson, Vadim Fishkin, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, IRWIN, Žiga Kariž, Antal Lakner, Juri Leiderman, Maja Licul, M+M, Olaf Nicolai, Cesare Pietroiusti, Tadej Pogačar, Marko Peljhan, Goran Petercol, Marjetica Potrč, Société Réaliste, Mladen Stilinović, Nebojša Šerič-Šoba, Nika Špan, Apolonija Šušteršič, Ulay, Elulalia Valldosera, Sislej Xhafa, Becky Beasly, Harun Farocki and others. (2022)

Publications

• Galerija Škuc izdaja, nos. 1-35, Oct 1981-Jun 1985. (Slovenian)
• Marina Gržinić, Galerija ŠKUC Ljubljana, 1978-1987, Ljubljana, 1988, 39 pp. Special issue of Sinteza, 79-82. [1] (Slovenian)

Literature

• Marko Ilić, "What is the Alternative? Ljubljana's ŠKUC Gallery, 1978-1984", ch 5 in Ilić, A Slow Burning Fire: The Rise of the New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, MIT Press, 2021. [2] (English)

• Tia Čiček, "Women Curators: Examining Women’s Roles at the ŠKUC Gallery in the 1980s", Miejsce 7: "Not Yet Written Stories. Women Artists in Central and Eastern Europe", Warsaw: Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, 2021.

• Marina Gržinić (ed.), Paralelne zgodovine opolnomočenja in urbanosti Slovenije 1980–1990–2000. Od ljubljanske subkulturne scene do novomedijske scene v Sloveniji / Parallel Histories of Slovenia's Empowerment and Urbanity 1980-1990-2000. From the Ljubljana Subcultural Scene to the New Media Scene in Slovenia, Ljubljana, 2022. (Slovenian)/(English)

Links

• https://www.galerijaskuc.si/
• http://www.galerija.skuc-drustvo.si/