Jasmina Cibic Artist talk: Desire building

Jasmina Cibic's immersive film and installation works are constructed around the history of instrumentalisation of art and architecture, exploring how culture and its capital begin to embody national ideologies, identities and representations of power. Join the artist for a talk exploring the soft power of art, architecture, theatre and dance - how these were deployed as strategies in the name of the nation during some of the key moments of European identity crisis.

A key work in Cibic's forthcoming exhibition is a scale model of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's lost Pavilion at the Barcelona EXPO 1929, designed by the Serbian modernist architect Dragiša Brašovan. Working across various archives, the artist retraced its form, and filled the persistent archival gaps with another - yet strikingly similar example of an architectural vitrine from the same years - Adolf Loos’ house for Josephine Baker. Merging the two architectures - one serving as a vitrine for the display of a nation at a World Exposition, the other an exotic female body to the white male gaze of Europe - the artist begins her critical unpacking of the complex entanglements of art, gender and state power and encourages us to reconsider the strategies employed in the construction of national culture and representation.

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Part of the programme for Jasmina Cibic | An Atmosphere of Joyful Contemplation.