Michael Blum
The Three Failures (2006)
Video-installation, 22 min

In The Three Failures, Michael Blum presents a contemporary fairy tale about communism, social-democracy, and capitalism. In a visionary monologue, he interweaves quirks of history, biography and political theory against a changing urban backdrop. He predicts that soon ‘ the ruins of capitalism will join the wreckage of communism in the post-utopian cemetery of failed political systems. You might argue that capitalism can’t fail. Right. But hasn’t capitalism already failed for 90% of the world’s population?’

Nick Crowe
Down by the Glenside (2006)
DVD 4:30 min (loop)

When I was a young girl, their marching and drilling
Awoke in the Glenside sounds awesome and thrilling
They loved poor old Ireland, to die they were willing
Glory O, Glory O, to the bold Fenian men.

In this newly-commissioned work, Nick Crowe approaches the subject of revolution by using documents of popular rebellion, both real and imagined. Down by the Glenside features a woman and a young boy together on a sofa in a contemporary living room. The boy is playing a playstation video game, a battle is taking place, there is laser fire and calls for reinforcements. The woman, his mother, sings an Irish ballard in a soprano voice. The historical lament for a loved one killed during an uprising is superimposed over the sounds of a fictional battle taking place in an imaged sci-fi future.

Igor Grubić
Revolution is Heritage (2006)
Installation with sculpture, prints, boxing gloves, banner, poem, and posters.

Revolution is Heritage, which has been especially created for this exhibition, is a complex installation that draws on the artist’s grandfather’s heroic past as a Yugoslav partisan in the Second World War to connect disparate strands of revolutionary experience from the early twentieth century to today. The work refers to the heritage of futurism, the revolutionary potential of the avant-garde and the interaction of personal and political histories.

Sanja Ivekovic
Figure and Ground (2005)
Series of prints

Figure and Ground is a work composed of pairs of photographs taken out of periodicals and juxtaposed by the principle of similarity. One of the photographs of each pair is a fashion shot taken from issue no.56 of The Face magazine, which was published in the fateful month of September 2001. A female model promoting a terrorist style with concealed face and holding a machine-gun is matched with a similarly posed photograph of a real life guerrilla taken from a news source such as Newsweek or Der Spiegel.

Gergely László and Péter Rákosi
Commuting Artillerymen (2006)
Photo installation

Gergely László and Péter Rákosi explore the popular fascination with national revolutionary traditions and historical battle re-enactments.

Nils Norman
Library to Civil Disobedience (2006)
Installation with books

For the Library to Civil Disobedience, a specially created work, Nils Norman has compiled a collection of books that explore the contemporary possibilities of resistance. It touches upon the role of reading rooms for the historical working classes in the spread of revolutionary ideas. Here the artist offers radical insights, case studies and relevant models for the subversion of globalised power.

Adrian Paci
It was not a Performance (2006)
Photographic prints