Victims Unknown

”Unknown Victims is the fourth series of plates, in which the artist laser-incised the faces of women that were victims of femicide. The work is a present-day response to Judy Chicago’s iconic The Dinner Party (1975–78), probably the most famous work of 1970s early feminist art, a table with place settings commemorating important women from history. However, Lažetić’s work has another, older historical precursor that had long been believed lost: The ceramic dish set The Famous Women Dinner Service (1932–34), a milestone proto-feminist work by the British painters Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf’s sister) and Duncan Grant, members of the famous bohemian Bloomsbury Group, featuring portraits of fifty famous women from history. All the women portrayed, from the Hollywood star Greta Garbo to the Queen of Sheba, did something interesting and powerful, and were often considered quite scandalous.

Today we might say they were liberated in the way they lived their private lives and did not conform to the patriarchies they were living in. Such an attitude continues to be the cause of violence against women, including femicide, which Lažetić depicts on plates in the form of everyday souvenirs, kept on walls as mementoes.” Modertna galerija, Ljubljana

For Your Pleasure (Feminist Positions in Visual Art in and from Slovenia)
Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Curator: Martina Vovk
27 October 2023 — 14 April 2024