Dialogi
eurozine
Dialogi
2000-05-01
Summary for Dialogi 5-6/2000
Our art editor Aleksandra Kostic interviewed "l'enfant terrible" of the Slovenian art scene, painter and poet Marko Jakse; he speaks of his work, of staying in New York, of America and Europe, of living in seclusion, of the digital and of Manifesta, which is taking place in Ljubljana.
Marijan Dovic continues his discussion of assessment and literary science at the end of the millennium. Firstly, he introduces his attempt to systematise crucial works of contemporary axiology into four main tendencies. Then he comments on a book by Janko Kos, Marxism and the Problems of Literary Assessment (1983), the only systematic axiology discussion in Slovenian. And finally, he speaks of the first of the four trends: radical relativistic theory of values by Barbara H. Smith.
Peter Simonic in his essay On the Working Class and Celebration considers the starting-points of ethnological study of celebrations and rituals as well as of the possibilities of their cultural-anthropological re-definition. There is a conflict of moral complexes going on at the level of gestures, language, and signs/symbols. Through a historical perspective of celebrating 1st May in Slovenia, especially in Maribor, relations are created between rituals and mass media, between micro and macro level of social activity, and between natural and cultural oscillation.
In the year of the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Slovenian greatest poet, the romanticist France Preseren (1800-1849), the musicologist Franc Kriznar published a treatise Music in the Time and Place of Preseren and Preseren's Poetry in the Light of Music. Among other topics there is a survey of Slovenian music in that era and setting Preseren's poems to music since his times.
The literary part of summer Dialogi is again dedicated to Slovenian authors. First there is the "double scull from Prekmurje": poet Milan Vincetic and prosaic Feri Lainscek, both living and creating in a seemingly marginal but very inspiring Pannonic part of Slovenia. Vincetic is one of the central poetical figures of the middle generation while Laincsek is one of the prosaic that have been most awarded, praised by critics and widely read for the last ten years. There are also two representatives of the youngest poets: Jurij Hudolin and Ivan Dobnik . Hudolin's work boasts of directness and impetuous emotion, and typical for Dobnik is an extreme subtlety of his poetical expression. There is also some fresh prose by AndrejLutman, one of the greatest masters of Slovenian language experiment in last years.
The diary was written by the architect and puppet designer Breda Varl. Just as the author herself, it is full of events and bubbling with energy: from the rehearsals for the performances in Maribor and Austria, to working with students and visiting numerous summer festival puppet shows, musicals and art exhibitions in Slovenia, Austria and Czech Republic.