ONE BAND. ONE VISION.
Laibach Landscapes 96/19.
by Sašo Podgoršek & Komposter
// personal project (with Sašo Podgoršek)
Opening: 09.08.2019. Gallery Makina. Pula, Croatia
(reprise: 15.10.2020, Delavski dom Trbovlje, Slovenia)
„One band. One vision. Laibach Landscapes 96/19“ is an exhibition of video works by Sašo Podgoršek and Komposter. As Long-term creative collaborators responsible for the majority of video content, ranging from music videos and films all the way to the video projections, which always formed an integral part of former Yugoslavia’s most controversial cultural phenomenon’s carefully elaborated performances, we presented 17 video excerpts from our work for the group. The exhibition symbolically marked the beginning of a campaign honouring 40 years of Laibach’s continuous activity, exclusively at the Makina Gallery in Pula on 9th August 2019.
Thanks to Hassan Abdelghani and Paola Orlić.
“Trust is good, control is better.”
(Vladimir I. Lenin apparently, Laibach definitely)
Laibach was always known for collective work and in fact we despise the notion of individuality as obsolete, old-fashioned and basically impossible. The first Item of our 1982 manifesto says: “LAIBACH works as a team (the collective spirit), according to the model of industrial production and totalitarianism, which means that the individual does not speak; the organization does. Our work is industrial, our language political.”
But we love collaborations. Over the years we therefore worked with many different artists and outsourced collaborators on many diverse projects, and control was always absolutely there; Laibach’s ‘Informbiro’was instantly on alert, carefully watching over, checking and waging such collaborations and the result of the work done. We trusted no one, not even ourselves. That is why we would look over everything ten times and more, till we were absolutely sure that everyone is in sync and in compliance with the final result - the outcome of such collaboration. And we are still practicing this caution and providence till the very day.
But there is an important difference with Sašo Podgoršek, and also with Komposter team. Sašo started to work with us long time ago – he joined Laibach with his camera on several tours (in USA, Russia, Israel…), we nicknamed him as our own Bertolucci, Fellini and Pennebaker, and whatever the result of our joint enterprise was, it was always good, it was in fact superb. He did several videos for Laibach and filmed lots of documentary material. And he always delivered, no matter what.
He later also introduced us to Komposter, the team of young visual artists, who are since then (2006) providing Laibach with spectacular, beautiful but precise images, projected on our concerts and we cannot imagine doing shows without their exquisite contribution anymore.
Sašo and Komposter are now basically adopted by Laibach (and Laibach is adopted by them) and they are much more than just our usual collaborators; they are significant part of our content, the very substance of our opus and of our entire fortification system. While working with them we can therefore easily practice a sort of collective laibachian lie-back laziness,because in their case trust is in principle still good, but control can just go fuck herself!
Ivo Saliger, Laibach
photos by Marko Hajdarović