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Editorial by the MFLUK Artistic Director

When we look out at the world through a window, it can sometimes seem as though we are observing something outside ourselves. It is precisely from this duality that the theme of the 15th Kranj International Festival of Fine Arts – ZDSLU, The Window as a Space of the Gaze, emerges.

In contemporary art, the window is not merely an architectural element; it becomes a frame, a passage and a symbolic boundary between interior and exterior, proximity and distance, the visible and the concealed, the observer and the observed. This year’s festival raises questions about what we see, what we wish to see, and how our gaze shapes our understanding of reality, space and the Other.

Across thirteen exhibition venues, Slovenian and international artists of different generations present their work. Their practices span a variety of visual media and are critically contextualised by art historians and art critics, while the festival is assessed by an international jury.

As artistic director, I believe that the strength of our festival lies not only in the works on display, but above all in the encounters and connections it fosters among artists, curators, institutions, independent cultural professionals and audiences. I find the coexistence of established authors, mid-career practitioners and emerging artists especially valuable, since it is precisely through intergenerational dialogue that art remains alive, open and embedded in the environment in which it is created. Equally important is the festival’s international dimension, which affords us direct insight into current developments in contemporary art worldwide.

The motif of the window resonates with particular ease in Kranj’s historic town centre. The windows of old town houses, narrow façades, stone portals and varied architectural details reveal layers of time accumulated over centuries. Some windows open onto streets and squares, others onto inner courtyards or the edges of the town. Each establishes its own relationship between private and public, between the building’s interior and the life unfolding beyond it. Kranj’s architecture is therefore not merely the setting of the festival, but an active interlocutor within it.

Martina Marenčič, academic sculptor
Artistic Director of the Kranj International Festival of Fine Arts – ZDSLU