P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is the roofing institution for activities of the internationally renowned Slovene arist Tadej Pogačar and adherents of him. Nowadays it runs two inependant spaces in Ljubljana: the P74 Centre and Gallery and the Kapsula Gallery. It is the holder and the organizer of the OHO Group Award. Beside that it is lately conspicuously focused on the artist books with the aim not only to produce, present, dispose and to sell them (international art fairs, in both exhibiting spaces, and per internet), but it also forms the Collection of the artist book of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute. Last but not least, the Institute is the ground for the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA) – Pogačar´s variegated and rich art production, which core is internationally known under the method called the new parasitism.

History

The historical base for the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute was the seria of Tadej Pogačar´s art projects entitled the Museum of Contemporary Art realized in the beginning of 1990s, what was in 1993 renamed and esablished as officiall institution named the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art (PMCA). Since then many projects were accomplished and further brunches of the Institute were formed: in 1999 was opened the P74 Centre and Gallery at Prušnikova 74 in Ljubljana Šentvid, on the perifery of the Slovene capital. To bring the gallery activites in many seanses closer to the public and with the intention to be the player of the (international) art market the Kapsula Gallery was opened in 2008. More about both galleries read singular articles.

PCMA

PMCA became renowned for the reworking of the logotype of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the theft of the introductory speech of the director of the Guggenheim from its homepage.

PMCA functions as a virtual institution which exists without its own space and employees, but rather merely settles into territories, locations and networks and feeds off the juices of institutions and operates according to the principles of new parasitism. Its operation is so oriented into the analysis and deconstruction of the symbolic centres of power and the search for parallel models of cultural, economic and social operation. The PCMA establishes inter-specific relations with institutions and social groups in order to enforce changes in the operation with the analysis of relations and actions within the systems. In recent collaborative projects PMCA deals with research and analysis of alternative urban strategies, parallel economy and human trafficking in selected urban areas.

Numerous interventions into the other museum collections followed, including collection of Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; Tretjak’s African Collection at Gallery of Fine Arts, Slovenj Gradec; the collection of the National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Naturmeuseum, Rotterdam; Mucsarnok, Budapest; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin.

The PMCA received wide media attention and fame with the organisation of the 1st World Congress of Sex Workers at the 49th Venice Biennale and of New Parasitism at the Padiglione dei Sex Worker in Giardini. It has cooperated on a number of international manifestations on the Tirana Biennale (2005), International Biennale of Contemporary Art Prague (2005), São Paulo Art Biennial (2006), International Istanbul Biennial (2007), and the Biennial of the Canary Islands (2009).

One of the most echoed project of the PMCA was Kings of the Street (1995), also one of the first artistic street actions with Ljubljana’s homeless people, as well the on-going collaborative transdisciplinary project CODE:RED (1999/2000-2010).

Beside six thematic editions of the review Journal for Anthropology and New Parasitism, two editions of the thematic newspaper Sex Worker, the PMCA published in 2007 the most comprehensive survey to date of the work of PMCA as a book entitled The Best Is Yet to Come. It includes essays of Zdenka Badovinac, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Miško Šuvaković, and Igor Zabel that discusse the beginning of the PMCA, strategies of parasitism and its historical and cultural significance, and situate the practice within the local and international context. The book is distinguished by opulent image documentation, divided on chapters of early actions, the major projects carried out between 1994 and 2005, concluding with the look at the PMCA recent projects in the time or still (some) not being presented to the public.

In January 2009 on the occasion of 15 anniversary of the PMCA, the P74 Center and Gallery featured the exhibition This is not America – 15 Years of P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary Art, with the summit of the discussion about the museum with Charles Esche, curator, writer, director of the Van Abbemuseum (Eidhoven, NL) as a guest. The exhibition clearly showed, how in the decade and half the PMCA created, organised and coordinated numerous events, actions, public interventions, performances, exhibitions, projections, roundtables, and how it has been a "guest" of museum collections, galleries, schools, universities, personal homes, public spaces, streets.

Call for applications of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute

Beside the open call for applications for the OHO Group Award addressed on the Slovene young artist under the age of 35, which the Institute organize in the co-operation with the Foundation for a Civil Society from New York, the Institute invite annualy also local and international artists expressing them in formats of the artist book and video.

Call for applications of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute: short video

Call for applications of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute: artist books