IRWIN

The IRWIN group consists of five artists: Dušan Mandič (Ljubljana, 1954), Miran Mohar (Novo Mesto, 1958), Andrej Savski (Ljubljana, 1961), Roman Uranjek (Trbovlje, 1961-2022), and Borut Vogelnik (Kranj, 1959). The group was founded in 1983 in Ljubljana, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and later co-founded the NSK organization and the NSK State in Time. As part of NSK, IRWIN is one of the longest-running artistic collectives in the world. Their emphasis falls on self-organized initiatives located outside the frameworks provided by official institutions, with a preference for all that is “collective” (there is an apparent democracy within the group in terms of decision-making). Their artistic practice is a total work of art. Their extraordinary flexibility and creativity through different working mediums and scales have made them a household name in Slovenia and beyond. From the very beginning, their profession of faith enhanced eclecticism as a platform for national authenticity. An essential role in the group’s history was played by symbolism and appropriation of specific motifs, an element as important as the motifs themselves. On the other hand, the complex structure of IRWIN is also reflected in the individual autonomy of its members, to the extent that each member is free to work independently and propose concepts for collective projects that are then evaluated together. What took precedence for IRWIN from the very beginning was the regulation of intersubjective relations, the formulation of collective decisions, and the influence of the structural conditions of artistic production in the space in which it operates.