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Jasmina Cibic (b. Ljubljana 1979) works in film, sculpture, performance and installation to explore ‘soft power’ – how political rhetoric is deployed through art and architecture, particularly examining how cultural production is used by the state to communicate certain principles and aspirations. Through unfolding the complex entanglements of art, gender and state power, the artist encourages viewers to consider the strategies employed in the construction of national culture.

Gathering together symbols and iconographies, Cibic’s projects present a synthesis of gesture, stagecraft and re-enactment. Realised in films and installations, her on-going performative practice is an ‘enacted’ exercise in the dissection of statecraft. Her multi-layered approach draws together primary sources and falsified narratives. This wilful overwriting creates shifting meanings and highlights historical uncertainties and untruths, especially in the gendering of the past. Cibic plays a double-game, at once decoding mechanisms of power whilst building her own allegorical structures.

Jasmina Cibic represented Slovenia at the 55th Venice Biennial with her project “For Our Economy and Culture”. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows at: macLyon, Museum Sztuki Łódź, Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana, CCA Glasgow, Phi Foundation Montreal, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Aarhus 2017, Esker Foundation Calgary, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, MGLC Ljubljana and Ludwig Museum Budapest along with group exhibitions at MAXXI Rome, Steirischer Herbst ‘19, MOMA NY, MUMA Monash Museum, CCS BARD, Marta Herford and Guangdong Museum of Art China. Cibic’s films have been screened at Whitechapel Gallery, Pula Film Festival, London Film Festival, HKW Berlin, Louvre, Dokfest Kassel and Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. Cibic was the winner of Jarman Award (2021), B3 Biennial of the Moving Image Award (2020) and MAC International Ulster Bank and Charlottenborg Fonden awards (2016).

Her latest monograph Spielraum is published by DISTANZ Verlag in partnership with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead and the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; and NADA by Kunstmuseen Krefeld and Kerber Verlag.