Name : M.C. Simonski Time : 22:00 - 23:30 (Paradiso Hall) Subject: "Predictions of Fire" (movie) Date : Friday 19 January 1996 |
| N.S.K. - The Basics Of
Morphology In Paradiso tonight, there will be a screening of Michael Bensons film "Predictions of Fire". This is a film about the Slovenian arts collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (N.S.K.) which incorperates graphic designers, the painterscollective 'IRWIN' and the theatergroup 'Noordung'. But perhaps N.S.K. is best known for the many records, CD's and concerts of their frontispiece LAIBACH. Because of their hard, military beats, their truely Wagnerian use of horns, and the fact that the group prefer to appear in military uniforms or hunting outfits, they have often been accused of, to say the least, flirting with fascism. As Micheal Benson film intends to show, the N.S.K. collective, including LAIBACH, were in fact visionaries, predicting the flames of nationalism, that turned former Yugoslavia in a bloody mess. In 1992, prior to their last live-performance in Tivoli-club, Utrecht, I had the opportunity to ask LAIBACH some of the questions that many people have towards the group. The answers that followed were in true LAIBACH- fashion, so cryptic, and with a Dark sense of humor. To kick off, the BIG Question: Does LAIBACH hold fascist sympathies??? "Nonsense of course," says Jani Novak, the reluctant spokesman for a group which presents itself as a collective. "If we are fascists, then Adolf Hilter was an artist." The best way to judge the way N.S.K. works can be done by noting an 'incident' in 1987, when Yugoslavia was still an undivided republic. The Slowenian department of the Socialist Youth League wanted to be very hip, and commissioned the graphic dept. of N.S.K. "Novi Kollektivizm" to design the poster for their "National Youth Day". Fine, said N.S.K. It was a beautiful poster, and the Socialist Youth League where very happy with it. Until a historian from Beograd pointed out that they had been superbly conned by those Ljubljana-artists. The poster was in fact a pastische of a Hitler-jugend poster, designed by nazi-artist Richard Klein. N.S.K. had merely spiffed it up a few notches, and replaced the swastika and the German eagle by using a hammer&sickle, and dropping in a few red stars instead. To please the ideological eye of their temporary employers. N.S.K. manipulates imagery, and they are damn good at it. Or to put it in a typical N.S.K.-statement: "Nazi-art and socialist-realism are the perfectionized form of true state ideology. Both based on the tradional art-forms, and based on certain cliche's, like 'educating the Masses'. What we are doing is "Reactionary Realism" , if you like. We see it as provocative pop-art, making use of these ideological symbols. Pop-art was meant as an ironic comment on Western consumerism. People in your sixties thought it very nihilistic. All we do is transform totalitarian state-art into pop-art. Idon't see any harm in that, do you???" Micheal Bensons film "Predictions of Fire" will be screened in Paradiso tonight, from 22.00 - 23.30 hrs.
M.C. Simonski |
