Ljubljana Biennale to Contact Another Reality in 2025 Edition

By Zian Chen – 23 April 2025, Ljubljana

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The Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts will in its 36th edition explore the intersection of autonomy, technology, and peaceful coexistence, with a prominent figure in exhibition-making and art education taking the curatorial reins.

Curated by Chus Martínez, the 2025 biennale, named The Oracle: On Fantasy and Freedom, and marks the 70th anniversary of the event, which has been a cornerstone of Slovenia’s cultural landscape since its founding in 1955.

Between June 6 and October 12, a range of newly commissioned works will be showcased in venues across the Slovenian capital.

Chus Martínez, Artistic Director of the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. Photo: Gina Folly.

Martínez, who views local biennials as vital in shaping the exhibition practices, has documented her curatorial vision in a weekly diary published on Mousse since last December called The Oracle.

As Martínez writes, the oracle invokes the symbolic role of art as a privileged space where we contemplate the future in terms of collective good and freedom. In her diary, she defines this oracular wonder as ‘not something exceptional per se’, but crucial for establishing ‘contact with another reality, with another dimension of the real.’

She also stressed the ability of an event like this to bridge the local and the global, saying it can be ‘a portal, a membrane connecting worlds that would otherwise remain apart’.

Central to the exhibitions will be the iconic puppet Žogica Marogica, first created by Ajša Pengov in 1951. As a symbol of Slovenia’s artistic and cultural heritage, the puppet will serve as a lens through which the biennale addresses contemporary themes of control, autonomy, and technology.

Martínez expressed enthusiasm for engaging with a new cohort of voices: ‘in this biennial many—almost all—artists I had never worked with before’.

The full list of participating artists will be revealed in mid-May.

Main image: Design: Grupe Ee (Mina Fina and Ivian Kan Mujezinović). Courtesy MGLC, the International Centre of Graphic Arts.

Zian Chen Zian Chen is a contributing editor at Ocula, based between Shanghai and Taipei. His collaborative research and curatorial projects have been presented at institutions in China and beyond, including Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai; Times Museum, Guangzhou; Nida Art Colony, Lithuania; and BLEED Biennial, Melbourne.