The 'Easthetics' of the NSK

Abstract

This paper describes how the Slovenian art-performance collective the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) and its associated music group, Laibach, interrogate the representation of Central and Eastern European identity in the context of post-Socialism, and thus operate as a nexus between Eastern Europe and the West. Laibach and NSK praxis is comprised of a multitude of discursive fields: art, politics, history and performance, combining together in a rigorous and often problematic exploration of identity. I will discuss how this is established through a strategy of militant non-alignment with temporal, ideological, geo-political and aesthetic determinants, and how their core aesthetic dynamic, Retrogardism, both originates from, and sustains, Laibach and the NSK’s role as East-West nexus.