[D66] How much fascism?

[Antid Oto]

http://www.bak-utrecht.nl/?click[id_projekt]=99

Opening: 28.09.2012, 17:00 hrs
Exhibition: 29.09.–23.12.2012

A group exhibition with works by Burak Delier, Etcétera…, Avi Mograbi, 
Marina Naprushkina, Trevor Paglen, Cesare Pietroiusti, Jonas Staal, 
Mladen Stilinović, SUPERFLEX, Milica Tomić, and Lidwien van de Ven. 
Curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW.

The exhibition engages in a dialogue with a provocative claim made by 
Slovenian sociologist, literary theorist, translator, and political 
activist Rastko Močnik in his collection of texts titled How Much 
Fascism? (1995). Močnik suggests that we no longer need to ask ourselves 
whether “new local populism, new ‘fascism,’ [and] new right-wing 
extremism” drive the contemporary condition, but rather, how much they 
drive that condition. We must attend not only to the open manifestations 
of fascism, though we witness more and more of such instances and one 
needs to ponder how societies that permit and tolerate such phenomena 
still “qualify” as democracies. More importantly, WHW suggest, “we need 
to turn our attention to the silent fascism that is becoming normalized 
through the systematic violence seeping into the laws and everyday 
administration practices of the nation-state, and to assess the 
mechanisms of oppression and the various symptoms of contemporary 
fascism that are being presented as unavoidable, pragmatic necessities.” 
In sync with these thoughts, the artists in the exhibition inquire about 
the possibility of art vis-a-vis such circumstances and invest in the 
cognitive power of art and the potential within the aesthetic experience 
of questioning reality.

Following the exhibition opening, Part Two of the 3rd FORMER WEST 
Research Congress: Beyond What Was Contemporary Art takes place on 29 
September 2012 at Utrecht School of the Arts, Mariaplaats 28, Utrecht. 
For more information please visit: www.formerwest.org.

The exhibition How Much Fascism? is curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW. 
It is a continuation of the exhibition Details at Bergen Kunsthall, 
Bergen which has been the starting point of ongoing research that will 
continue with an exhibition at Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp co-curated 
with Mihnea Mircan and a series of events within the project Beginning 
As Well As We Can (How Do We Talk About Fascism?) at Gallery Nova, 
Zagreb, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm. How 
Much Fascism? at BAK is a research exhibition within the framework of 
BAK’s long-term project FORMER WEST which is generously supported by the 
Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam and the EU Culture Programme, Brussels.