IRWIN is the name of a five-person Slovenian artists’ collective that has been collaborating on numerous groundbreaking projects both within and outside the group since 1983. How to Read a Map is the fourth and last part of a project spanning several countries, highlighting various aspects of their collaboration, which encompass a wide range of media such as photography, film, installation, interventions in the public space, painting and publications. From the beginning IRWIN has focused on the relationship, interplay and forms of representation of art and ideology. Their working method requires that each member of the group retains their own artistic form of expression and that at the same time room remains for collaborations with other artists such as Marina Abramović, Andres Serrano or Joseph Beuys.
How to Read a Map gives an overview of IRWIN’s investigations of the ways in which geo-political developments are reflected in the writing of art history and demonstrates the collective’s biting humour in their approach to the power structures of the art world. The publication accompanies the exhibition by the same name at Kunsthaus Pasquart Biel, Switzerland.