"European Capitalism and the Need for Metapolitics" in Pragu

[Anna Balint]

WORKERS’ CLUB AT IBCA 2005 – International Biennale of 
Contemporary Art - National Gallery in Prague

14. 06. – 11. 09. 2005

Official opening: 13 June, 6 - 10 pm


Curator: Suzana Milevska

 Artists and projects: 

Zdenko Bužek, Bužek Comedy Club, 2005
Performance (13 June, 7.30 pm and 14 June 5-6 pm)

Susan Kelly and Stephen Morton, What is to be Done? Time-Work-
Organisation, 2002-2005
installation, on-going archive and conference

Tanja Ostojić and Fahim Amir, European Capitalism and the Need for 
Metapolitics, 2005
speech (13 June, 6.30 pm) and discussion (14 June, 14.45-15.30)

Dan Perjovschi, Working&Clubbing: The Prague Report, 2005 
wall-newspaper and printed newspaper

Tadej Pogačar, MonApoly - A Human Trade Game, 2004
Interactive board game (41 x 28 x 5 cm), edition of 100
Produced by GFZK, Leipzig and P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of 
Contemporary Art

Mladen Stilinović, Work is a Disease – Karl Marx, 1979 (2004) 
text on T-shirt  (edition of 150) and 
text, acryl on silk, 20 x 80 cm 
Mladen Stilinović, The Praise of Laziness, 1993 
print on paper, 40x30cm     

 
Workers’ Club Conference and Labour Party

14 June, 10.00 am - 6.00 pm, National Gallery – Collection of Modern 
and Contemporary Art, Veletržní Palác

Praha 7 - Holešovice, Dukelských hrdinů 47


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The project Workers’ Club is going to take place as one of the 30 
curatorial projects to be exhibited during the International Biennale of 
Contemporary Art at the National Gallery in Prague, at its main space in 
Veletržní Palác. It is imagined as a kind of ironic re-staging of the 
workers’ club shows that used to be organised in most of the 
communist countries on the occasions such as anniversaries, public 
holidays and other celebrations. During such shows various sections of 
the local workers’ clubs could present their activities in a form of poetry 
readings, drama and sketch performances, concerts, exhibitions, quiz 
shows, chess and sport tournaments. By miming this format of workers’ 
clubs’ shows (but not their content) the project Workers’ Club offers an 
informal ‘stage’ for interaction between art and cultural ‘workers’, and 
members of the audience (in a way ‘workers’ themselves). The project’s 
main aim is not any kind of call for revival of the original concept of 
workers’ clubs but it rather intends to enable a ‘second sight’, a kind of 
framework for revisiting and critical re-evaluation of this extinct 
phenomenon of self-organisation and social ‘design’. The visitors are 
invited to mingle and communicate with the project’s participants and 
through various art concepts to re-consider the relevance of the issues 
of work and organisation of work, self-organisation, measurement of 
working time, and also the issues of idleness and organisation of 
leisure time in the cultural and art context.

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The project European Capitalism and the Need for Metapolitics is a co-
operation between Tanja Ostojić and Fahim Amir. It will consist of a 
speech to be performed by Fahim Amir at the opening night, and a 
discussion with the audience (Amir´s moderated by Ostojic), the day 
after the opening . This project comes as a continuation to Tanja 
Ostojić’s previous engagements in cultural critique of the international 
art institutions and her disagreement with the way in which certain 
relevant political and economical topics are getting introduced in the 
context of exhibitions and art conferences. In her opinion visual arts 
and political activism should continuously inform each other about 
different models and strategies of actions. In the context of Workers’ 
Club project she has invited Fahim Amir (radical Marxist theorist of 
Afghan origin, teaching social politics in Vienna) to give the opening 
speech. Amir’s speech is going to point to the urgency of the 
problematic relation between art and politics and to the importance 
that contemporary artists keep on trying to ‘understand the current 
processes with all their contradictions as expressions of and means to 
the reconfiguration of forces in a continually changing capitalism.’ (F. 
Amir) 
Tanja Ostojić is an cross-disciplinary artist and cultural activist of 
Yugoslav origin. In her performances and other relational projects she 
usually engages in cultural, social, and political critique of the 
institutional and individual centres of power. Often playing dangerously 
with various authorities such as immigration officials, prisons, museums, 
or curators, she exposes herself to possible counter-effects from these 
power centres. Thus she has deconstructed the border between her 
private and her public life as an artist, especially when crossing borders 
illegally in her on-going series of performances, or when in the context 
of her on-going project Looking for a Husband with EU Passport she 
got married via internet add and subjected herself to many tedious 
procedures and discussions with various authorities). 
                                                                                                                  
                                              ( S. Milevska)

 

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The IBCA 2005 – National Gallery in Prague is held under the auspices 
of Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, Pavel Dostál, Minister 
of Culture of the Czech Republic, and Pavel Bém, Lord Mayor of the 
Capital City of Prague. 

Preparatory team: 
President of IBCA: Milan Knížák, General Director, National Gallery in 
Prague
Main Curator of IBCA: Tomáš Vlček, Director of the Collection of Modern 
and Contemporary Art, National Gallery in Prague

Co-ordinator of IBCA: Světlana Michajlová 
Production Manager of IBCA: Šárka Podlipná

International Board of Experts: 
Anthony Vidler – Dean, Cooper Union, New York, USA 
Robert Fitzpatrick – Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 
USA 
David Joselit – Yale University, New Haven, USA 
Maria Anna Potocká – Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cracow, 
Poland 


Contact for journalists: 
Petra Jungwirthová
Head of the Public Relations Department
Kinski Palace, Staromìstské Square 12, Prague 1
phone: 222 321 459
e-mail address: jungwirthova at ngprague.cz or

Contact the curator: suzanamilevska at yahoo.com

http://www.ngprague.cz/biennale/projects.php?lng=en&cat=c&id=13