BOOKSTORE DEPO
12/2011 I build project I team: Apolonija Šušteršič, Iztok Hvala, Sara Badovinac, Jana Furman, Larisa Kazić, Nina Rojc, Nina Vidić Ivančič I collaborators: Tjaša Pogačar, Andrej Škufca
Published:
2012 Magazine Praznine, issue II/III
Bookstore DEPO is an alternative to typical museum shops that are becoming increasingly commercial and reminiscent of custom jewellery and souvenir shops. The Depository fits in with the concept of MSUM (Museum of Contemporary Arts Metelkova) and its evolution as the new museum unit of Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. Bringing together the past and the present, the bookstore is a depository of Moderna galerija’s publications that represent the symbolic foundations of the new museum of contemporary art.
The building blocks made of publications are stacked together in a way that marks the various periods in the history of MG, also visually underscoring the foundations of new knowledge shaping both today and the new museum. The Depository bookstore is not there to replace the museum’s storage facility for books, but rather to comment on it, broaching questions of the significance of these publications, the responsibility toward their keeping, and their public accessibility. There is no furniture in the Depository since all the functional elements are composed of publications.
In a collaborative project with artists Tjaša Pogačar and Andrej Škufca, the bookstore has become a space dedicated to the topical question of the relation between a document and a work of art, focusing particularly on the significance of documents in the construction of historical memory and the way it relates to artworks and viewers. In addition to publications issued by MG+MSUM, the bookstore provides a selection of artists’ catalogs, artist books, various self-published titles, and artists’ portfolios with photographs and videos.
The selection of publications changes and grows in accordance with the exhibition program. When visitors come to the bookstore, a certain selection of publications is physically available, but they can also choose from among publications not displayed at a given moment.