The tenth anniversary of the DobraVaga Gallery coincides with a collective reflection on the past decade, which has been unfolding in the virtual space for some time now in the form of a flood of memes and other archival images from 2016.
The selection of artists is characterised by loops between fixed and speculative points in time, reflected in the simultaneous collision and layering of virtual and material spaces. With a desire to define their own position in a given moment, the selected artists question the dimensions of the corporeal, reach for technological extensions, or resort to prophesying the future in order to make sense of premonitions about what is to come.
With the exhibition 20X6 – Loops and Pitfalls, we’re on the trail of the collapse of a unified reality, environmental degradation, and pressures on the body that force the latter into fragmentation. An individual’s perception merges with the flow of generated virtual images, keeping their nervous system in a state of overstimulation. In the flow of the acute present, the individual nevertheless attempts to simultaneously or constantly interchangeably reflect on what has already unfolded and plan their next step. They do this through meme analysis of the social state, examining the position of their ‘natural’ body in relation to urban space, or through the assemblage of the body with technology. Therefore, it seems that all these operations take place simultaneously, and the untainted starting point in space and time is disappearing, as are the linear narrative and the point of the reliable and objective. Thus, speculations at various levels come to the fore of discourses.
For a moment longer, let us focus on the Chinese zodiac (currently we’re in the Year of the Horse) and try to find meaning, a humorous gesture, a pleasant aesthetic signifier, or solace in this symbol; with intellectual distance, we monitor the fall and rise of stocks and cryptocurrencies, secretly play the lottery, establish a parallel reality for ourselves in The Sims. With this year’s anniversary exhibition, we’re on the trail of loops that can be discerned from layers of seemingly aesthetically contradictory images and, above all, from their churned-out derivatives. We reflect on the past by addressing trauma; we do not surrender to nostalgia, and we treat naivety with the utmost prudence.
Artists: esh, Tara Kek, Neo Nor, Janez Škrlec, Vita Tušek
Curators: Lucija Klauž, Špela Pečjak, Olja Simčič Jerele
PROGRAMME:
Friday, 22 May 2026 @ DobraVaga / 17.00
Play, zines, and afternoon rest / presentation of Matej Mali’s board game part of the May Zine Vitrine exhibition The Most Rested Person in the World, and relaxed zine browsing in the Zine Reading Room as part of Ljubljana Art Weekend
Tuesday, 26 May 2026 @ DobraVaga / 20.00
Come and See / performance by artist esh as part of the opening of the 20X6 – Loops and Pitfalls group exhibition
Tuesday, 26 May 2026 @ DobraVaga / 19.00
20X6 – Loops and Pitfalls / opening of the group exhibition at the 10th anniversary of the DobraVagaGallery
Thursday, 11 June 2026 @ DobraVaga / 15.00–18.00
Let’s Build Memory / zine photography workshop with Lucija Rosc as part of the 20X6 – Loops and Pitfalls exhibition
Tuesday, 17 June 2026 @ DobraVaga / 17.00
Let’s Kill 2016 / A lecture by researcher Lea Sande on the recursive nature of culture, the online shaping of taste, and the algorithmic curation of reality.
Wednesday, 24 June 2026 @ DobraVaga / 16.30
Tudi Book Club x DobraVaga / book club and discussion on the fictionalisation of the past and nostalgia, as part of the 20X6 – Loops and Pitfalls exhibition
Free admission.
26. 5.–4. 7. 2026
Organisation: DobraVaga / Kino Šiška.
