Ljubljana · Slovenia
Cukrarna's Summer Triptych: Lee, Collins, and Unquiet Resonances
Three exhibitions at Ljubljana's Cukrarna Gallery probe instability, collaboration, and contested histories
Fragile Materials, Shifting Identities
Until 30 August 2026, Gallery Parter hosts Accomplice, a new installation by Vienna-based South Korean artist Yein Lee. Curated by Ema Ograjenšek, the show comprises sculptures and a large-scale floor piece that grapple with material instability and spatial uncertainty. Working with polymer gypsum, epoxy putty, and found steel, Lee creates assemblages described as "trace bodies"—casts that retain the fragility of their source materials. Influenced by ecological crisis, geopolitical volatility, and personal migration, the works oscillate between disruption and alliance, forming atmospheric landscapes of crude materiality and poetic emergence.
Cinema of Engagement
Also running until 30 August 2026, Phil Collins' Nothing Is Inevitable Until It Happens surveys three major films: Tomorrow Is Always Too Long (2014), Ceremony (2018), and Mixtape #1 (2024). Curated by Alenka Gregorič, the programme unfolds over three weeks with a different film each week, complemented by a screening of Bring Down the Walls (2020) at the Slovenian Cinematheque. Collins' practice moves fluidly between moving image, music, and political commentary, examining how ideology, labour, and collective memory shape lived experience. His work balances intimacy with social critique, challenging documentary conventions while remaining emotionally charged and formally adventurous.
Histories in Tension
Opening 13 June and running until 3 January 2027, untranquil now brings together over thirty artists including Francis Alÿs, Rosa Barba, Tacita Dean, Joan Jonas, Gordon Matta-Clark, Anri Sala, Kara Walker, and Rosemarie Trockel. Curated by Corinne Diserens in collaboration with the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the exhibition explores artworks and events that authorise complexity, where bodies and perception become agents of contradictory states and troubled histories. Through a web of historical resonances, it examines displacement across modernist buildings, social housing, public spaces, and archaeological sites, evoking what Edward Said termed "contrapuntal consciousness" and art's capacity to restore the intensive potential of the event.
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