Breda Skrjanec
International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana
Mednarodni graficni likovni center
Grad Tivoli, Pod turnom 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Tel. 00386 (0)1 2413 805
Fax. 00386 (0)1 2413 821
Web: http://www.mglc-lj.si/eng/index.htm
Email: breda.skrjanec@mglc-lj.si
Paper: "Thrust: 26th Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts"
The artistic director for the 26th Biennial of Graphic Arts is the respected Slovene art historian Jure Mikuž. The concept emphases the 50th anniversary of the event, diversity of views on contemporary graphic arts and a process as an organizational approach to staging an exhibition. He has invited eighteen prestigious institutions from all over the world to each present an exhibition that attempts to answer the question: What are the graphic arts today? Their answers give form to the artistic criteria of the cultural and geographic settings in which these institutions operate and in this way help to constitute a postcolonial perspective on art. This approach underscores the great variety of art today as it exists in our globalising world.
The title of this year's Biennial, "Thrust", speaks to the power of the Biennial, which for fifty years has been one of the engines of both Slovene culture and international graphic arts. The title also alludes to the power of art to trigger an array of responses, thoughts, and emotions, as well as to the meaning of the local as opposed to the global.
BREDA SKRJANEC (born in 1960, Ljubljana) graduated from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, with a degree in art history and sociology. She received her master's degree in art history with a thesis on The History of
the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. She is senior curator at the International Center of Graphic Arts (MGLC). She has prepared a number of exhibitions, including Print World at the 24th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, My Altamira, The Spirit of Image, and Prints from Stone. She writes articles and gives lectures both at home and abroad.