Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nadja Zgonik

Office hours: sreda od 13.15 do 14. ure, kabinet 18
Location: Erjavčeva cesta 23

Dr. Nadja Zgonik is an art historian and an art critic.

Education:

  • 1988 – graduated from the Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
  • 1993 – completed her master’s degree
  • 1997 – became a Doctor of Science in the field of art history

Work experiences:

  • 1998 – 2020: part-time professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana.
  • 1989–: lectures on art history, art theory and analysis of contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana.
  • 1988: among the founders and first editor-in-chief of the Modern Gallery’s newspaper M’ars (1989, discontinued in 2001).
  • As a student, she was employed at the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana at the Department of Documentary Studies.

Training, residencies:

She continued her studies abroad with a scholarship from the Cini Foundation in Venice (1988), with a scholarship from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Biblioteca Hertziana in Rome (1992), with a scholarship from the French Ministry of Culture at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1993), was a two-time recipient of the Knafle Scholarship for the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Vienna (1991, 1994) and was selected for a residence in New York by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia (2003). In 2016, she was a visiting professor for one semester at the College of Humanities and Arts, National Chiayi University, Taiwan, and in 2018 she was a visiting researcher at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN, USA.

Other collaborations:

She has been the curator of numerous exhibitions, author projects and monographic presentations of Slovenian artists, some of which were prepared as projects for specific spaces (Gustav Gnamuš in the Hospital Chapel, Celje, 1995; Blue Hand: Art – Technology – Science, Rihard Jakopič Art Exhibition, Ljubljana, 1997; Cabinet of Found Objects: an exhibition of personal fetishes of artists, Coastal Galleries Piran, Loža Gallery, Koper, 1997) and has so far collaborated with most important Slovenian galleries, the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana, the Maribor Art Gallery, the Božidar Jakac Gallery in Kostanjevica na Krki, the Nova Gorica City Gallery and others. She has prepared several exhibitions of Slovenian art abroad: Forma eterna, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, 1995; La doppiezza della luce, Galleria A+A, Venice, 1999; Positionen des Körpers, Kunstforum, Bonn, transfer to Voipaala Art Center, Finland, 2000; The Different Same. Contemporary Slovene and Chinese Art (with Zhu Tong), Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, 2003; Identikit. International exhibition. Muslim Mulliqi Prize (with Gani Llalloshi), The Kosova Art Gallery, Pristina, 2003.

In 2011, she was the commissioner of the Slovenian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, in 2014 she was the Commissioner for the Slovenian national team at the Biennial European Ceramic Context 2014, Bornholm Art Museum, Denmark. She participated in the international juries of the Essl Award for CE Europe (2003, 2005, 2007), she was the selector for the first international exhibition in Kosovo Muslim Mulliqi Prize in Prishtina (2003), and in 2007 she was a member of the international jury and chaired the international jury of the Ljubljana Ceramics Triennial several times. Unicum (2009, 2012, 2015, 2018).

Publications, research and academic contribution:

Her research interests include Slovene modernism, postmodernism, contemporary art, art theory and the theory of art historiography. She writes critiques, essays, scientific discussions, accompanying studies in exhibition catalogues. So far, she has had the following books published: Marij Pregelj. Drawing in a Picture (1994), Zdenko Huzjan (2001), Images of Slovenia (2002), Žarko Vrezec (2004), Marij Pregelj. Paintings 1957-1967 (2007, together with J. Denegri) and Studies in Slovene Modernism after 1945 (2010). Along with a group of students, she edited and prepared for publication the book Glossary of Slovenian Art after 1945 (2009). First available in a printed edition, it has been freely available online since 2013 www.pojmovnik.si.

As a long-time head of the Department of Theoretical Sciences at the Academy of Fine Arts, she led a project to prepare for a second-level theoretical study in the field of Theory of Fine Arts and implemented the scientific doctoral study of Art Sciences with her colleagues within the interdisciplinary doctoral study Humanities and Social Sciences. From 2007 to 2012 she was the President of the Expert Commission for Fine Arts of the City of Ljubljana, from 2010 to 2012 the President of the National Matura Commission for the subject Art History, from 2008 to 2012 a member of the Board of the Prešeren Fund, from 2011 to 2018 a member of the Expert Council of the Ljubljana Castle Public Institution. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics AICA and the Slovenian section of PEN. Since 2009, she has been participating in a research program entitled Theatre and Inter-Art Research at UL AGRFT and since 2020 in a research project entitled Models and Practices of International Cultural Exchange. Movements : Exploring Spatio-Temporal Cultural Dynamics at ALUO, both funded by ARRS – the Slovenian Research Agency.

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