The exhibition "Potemkin Village: Actors and Plots" will open at the City Museum of Ljubljana on November 6, at 7 pm.
Closing time: November 18, 2007
Opening hours: TUE-FRI 10:00 to 18:00

Let’s imagine the picture. The grand tour goes smooth. Catherine the Great suddenly orders the boat to disembark her at the next stop. All the villages she has seen from the river are so beautiful. She wants to have a closer look at the houses. She wants to touch them. As she approaches the isbas, she notices something strange. Lack of depth, lack of perspective… Surfaces… These are no real houses, just mere facades, freshly, nicely painted. The tsarina goes round the board. There, she discovers a complex system made of pulleys, ropes, and wooden sticks. As her face darkens, the crowd of cheerful peasants progressively shuts up. Catherine the Great stares at Prince Grigory Potemkin. He looks uneasy. The play is over.
The 18th century liked theatre: serfs’ theatre for the enjoyment of nobility in Russia, mushrooming of theatre halls in any city of Europe, queens playing the shepherdess… So do we. We too like theatre -especially when it comes to all the tricks, secrets, stories, and gossips behind the scenes; illusions, mechanics, and optical devices; actors and puppets.
And because in the world of illusion one always needs a touch of reality, we’ll let you guess where it is.

Participants: Ioannis Belimpasakis; Charlie Citron; Robert Franciszty; Jaša H. Jenul; Tadeusz Kantor; Marko A. Kovačič; Erbossyn Meldibekov; Sala-manca