Inke Arns: Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) – eine Analyse ihrer künstlerischen Strategien im Kontext der 1980er Jahre in Jugoslawien

The first comprehensive study of the artist collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) by Inke Arns presents the movement's principal subdivisions dedicated to music, visual art, dance/performance, and graphic design (Laibach, Irwin, Gledališče Sester Scipion Nasice / Kozmokinetično Gledališče Rdeči Pilot / Kozmokinetični Kabinet Noordung, and Novi Kolektivizem).

The monograph also examines NSK's central theoretical and artistic concepts, including Retro-Avant-Garde and over-identification, situating them within the social and political context that emerged in Slovenia and Yugoslavia during the 1980s. Through its subcultural strategies of escalation, NSK exposed the persistence of nationalist myths and the presence of a (totalitarian) desire for voluntary submission. The philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek described this subversive strategy as "traversing the fantasy."

Inke Arns interprets the radical artistic practices employed by NSK during the 1980s as an aesthetic realization of the theories developed by the Slovenian Lacanian School around Slavoj Žižek from the early 1980s onward. This intellectual movement became a key theoretical foundation for Ljubljana's subcultural scene, which in turn developed into one of the driving forces behind the emergence—or rediscovery—of civil society in Slovenia.

In retrospect, Neue Slowenische Kunst has frequently been regarded as a catalyst for Slovenia's processes of political pluralization and democratization. Arns explores the paradox of how the "totalitarianism" of NSK's self-styled "spiritual terrorists" made a significant contribution to the democratization of a semi-totalitarian system.

The publication concludes with an interview conducted by the author with members of Irwin in Ljubljana in March 2000.