Namepickers, a work by the Irwin group. In a straightforward and simple way – and with an elegant allusion to prostitution – Namepickers points out that the essence of the artwork is determined by the author's name. Namely, rating of the artist’s name affects the market value of the work, and, retroactively, also his identity, which is perceptively – ironically – completely identical in any case. Thus we are facing the perfidious logic of a market also capable of capitalizing the speculative values of the author, even when these prove to be practically indefinable.
Biographies of the artists and groups:
IRWIN group is founded in Ljubljana 1983. and it was presented as an artists group without individual identities; active within a wider retro-avantgarde grouping named "NSK" (New Slovenian Art); 1984 group programme was written; the fundamental aim in the work of the Irwin group is the affirmation of Slovene art through a spectacle-charted presentation. 1988 the names of the Irwin group members appeared: Dušan Mandić, 1954 born in Ljubljana; Miran Mohar, born 1958 in Novo mesto; Andrej Savski, born 1961 in Ljubljana; Roman Uranjek, born 1961 in Trbovlje; Borut Vogelnik, born 1958 in Kranj.
