Company: xxx

PURIFICATION AND REJUVENATION* 

The studio New Collectivism ("Novi Kolektivizem, NK") has been active in the field of art design for several years both in Slovenia and
Yugoslavia. Studio NK has produced a number of posters for Slovene cultural institutions, which were subsequently included in the
exhibition of the best Yugoslav posters at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. 

The group designed the overall image of the Ljubljana Summer Festival (1986), a series of posters for the Slovene National Theater for the
1985/86 season and for the Croatian National Theater Split for the 1986/87 season. It also produced the graphic image of the music festival
"Revolucija in glasba" ("Revolution and Music") in 1985 and 1986, the posters for Novi Rock '86, Youth Work Brigades (1985), and also
designed books and album covers. The art design of Studio NK is based on a strict awareness of form. In their four years of continuous
activities, they have consistently applied and developed the method of the retro-principle, which was, and still is, the universal principle of
studio design. 

In the past few months, their poster and overall graphic image for the celebration of Youth Day has upset a number of people, to say the least.
This was also the main reason for the following written interview, which is also one of the methods used by NK for communication with the
public. 

You probably used the youth from the Nazi poster on purpose, since you yourselves maintain that a poster may be
provocative. The provocation succeeded. Did you expect such a reaction? Would you have done it differently had you
known what was to follow? 

NEW COLLECTIVISM 

The poster celebrating Youth Day is by definition a "political poster." New Collectivism consistently applied the retro method in the design of
the Youth Day poster. Using the counterpoint method, it combined two symbols from political history which had undoubtedly marked the
political scene of the twentieth century. New Collectivism consciously decided to quote Klein's picture The Third Reich to avoid intentional
provocation and thereby stress the cognitive humanism of the retro-quotation. 

Athough your poster is a work of art, it "strayed" into political waters. What is your relation to politics and the state? 

New Collectivism is a design studio. Design is a public activity, which designates the emotional and visual image of cultural, artistic and
socio-political events. The essence of design is its mass communication, which is contained in the technological process of reproduction. The
ambition of New Collectivism to accept commissions which give the group the chance to communicate with the widest public is therefore
understandable. The relation of New Collectivism towards politics and the state is completely the same as any other producer/client relation. 

How does NK understand a political poster? 

By definition a poster is a reproduction. 

The idea and elaboration of the poster are associated with the evolution of the most varied forms of visual techniques. A poster must be mass
produced and publicly displayed. That is why the origin of the poster can be identified with the advent of the printing press as the first
technology of mass production. 

The poster has become an indispensable element in introducing a new concept of public display, in which the members of the society are
defined mostly as spectators and consumers. The poster has become, in the concept of thus-established public display, a powerful weapon of
political manipulation. With the apocalyptic political picture of the twentieth century, an unambiguous definition of the poster as a means of
combat between opposing sides has been formulated. 

Why did NK decide to make a poster for Youth Day? 

The ambition of every designer in New Collectivism is to communicate with the largest audience. Design is a public activity which defines the
emotional and visual image of the cultural, artistic and socio-political scene. 

That is why the decision of New Collectivism to support Youth Day with a retrogarde campaign and lend artistic meaning to the efforts of
Slovene and Yugoslav youth in the modification and re-evaluation of the celebration of Youth Day is understandable. 

Do you think it is possible to eliminate the traumas of fascism with such artistic "provocations?" Does the society even
want such catharsis? 

The trauma of fascism, or any other form of repression, can be eliminated by each individual through an understanding of its reasons and
consequences. If each individual is aware of history, the possibility of history repeating itself is thus avoided. New Collectivism believes that
society and its individuals do not want history to repeat itself. That is why their posters have a sedative influence on the rational mind,
exhibiting at the same time a disturbing appeal to the public. 

It is said that those who attack your poster the most are even more upset by your explanations and statements. Any
comment? 

The retro-principle is present in statements and images. The statements of New Collectivism are posters and the posters of New Collectivism
are the text. 

The origin of the poster, for example, is subject to some laws. It must be effective, informative... what else? 

The artistic quality of the poster consists of the fact that it perceives and mirrors more than the viewer is able to perceive before he sees the
poster. Its task is to persuade. That is why the poster must express the propagandist's thought with immediacy and unpredictability. 

Your conceptual principle is intensely eclectic, constructing on reinterpretation, recreating models from the past and
distancing itself from all other present trends. Being eclectic, do you use any selective methods, and if so, what are
your priorities (in the all-aesthetic evocation of historical works)? 

New Collectivism communicates with its public through messages, thoughts, which are contained in the form of the poster, book design or
overall image of an event. Every retrogardist in New Collectivism must be acquainted with current events in art and society, because the only
selective method which NK considers in the design of its products is determined by the media context of cultural artistic and socio-political
events. All productions of New Collectivism are formally aesthetically balanced. However, by viewing the products of these four years of
continuous activities, it is possible to discern a consistency and purpose in the message of each poster, book design and overall image. 

Where do the problems with your products stem from? 

The emotional possibilities of the poster are limitless. A poster can be lyrical, threatening or revolting; it can be optimistic or defensive. 

If the viewer does not like the presented object, he will reject it at once, regardless of how the designer presented the object. All the designer
can do here is to place it in some as yet nonexistant and untested context, where the viewer will be able to see it in a novel way. 

You act as a group. What role does the individual play in your homogeneous organization? 

New Collectivism is a group, composed of individuals. Each individual is subordinated to the whole, which is a synthesis of the forces and
desires of all members. 

*Excerpts from interviews for "Mladina" and "Mentor," 1987 

NK - Proclamation 

What is a political poster? 

What gives the political poster its explosive power? 

The political poster is an experience of the twentieth century. 

The political poster is a form of public comminication. 

It impacts the viewer quickly, unexpectedly, effectively, lingering in the memory for a long time. 

Its thunderous poetry reverberates through million-strong audiences. 

The retrogardist is an artist guided by the desire and ability to analyze with an unerring eye the relations of the beautiful, the raw, the exalted,
the holy and the terrible in current events throughout the world. The retrogardist combats using design and all the means at his disposal. He
applies the method of the retro principle the way an automobile designer assembles the parts of a car - wheels, steering wheel, engine... The
creative processes of reversed perspective, metaphors, hyperboles, time and space warp, unite and link everything that mankind has squeezed
from its veins until now. Content and form are only tools which combine themes and symbols into dynamicism, tension, excitement and
drama. 

The political poster must be like a blow into an open wound. 

New Collectivism has, within the frame of new state ideologies, redesigned and exposed the old classicist form of man, based on the principle
of extra-temporal humanist ideals, into a new value, to be dictated by concrete historical events. 

The political poster YOUTH DAY by New Collectivism has a soothing influence on stable minds and is a disturbing appeal to the masses. 

A poster of New Collectivism is a text, and the text of New Collectivism is a poster! 

Its slogan is - humanist propaganda. 

NEW COLECTIVISM, Ljubljana, March 21, 1987