Beyond the Globe

Edited by Boris Groys, this catalogue accompanied the 8th edition of the U3 Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia, an exhibition examining the idea of the cosmos as both a site of existential anxiety and a horizon for utopian political imagination. Bringing together artists from Slovenia and international contexts, the publication explores how contemporary art engages with cosmology, science fiction, technology, surveillance, universalism, and the material conditions of human existence within a wider cosmic order.

The catalogue reflects Groys’s curatorial proposition that the cosmos functions simultaneously as a space of radical possibility and profound instability. Positioned between fears of ecological collapse, technological catastrophe, and planetary extinction on one hand, and aspirations toward collective universality and transnational solidarity on the other, the exhibition approached cosmic space as a field through which contemporary political, philosophical, and aesthetic questions could be reconsidered.

Drawing on references ranging from Georges Bataille’s theory of excess energy to the utopian cosmism of the Russian avant-garde, the publication situates artistic practice within broader debates concerning scientific imagination, materialist universalism, corporeality, and systems of power. Essays and project texts examine how contemporary artists engage the cosmos as both metaphor and material condition: a realm shaping bodies, technologies, ideologies, and systems of control.

Particular attention is given to the relationship between artistic and scientific imaginaries, including explorations of space technology, surveillance infrastructures, speculative futures, and the enduring influence of avant-garde utopianism within contemporary art practices. The publication also foregrounds the specific context of Slovenian artistic culture, tracing its historical openness toward universalist and cosmological thinking, from the architecture of Jože Plečnik to the continuing resonance of Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde within contemporary visual culture.

The catalogue further marked a significant shift in the history of U3 by positioning the triennial beyond a strictly national framework, instead proposing a dialogue between Slovenian artistic production and broader geopolitical, cultural, and philosophical contexts. Through essays, visual documentation, and curatorial texts, the publication reflects on how contemporary art can function as a platform for negotiating the tensions between locality and universality, political fragmentation and collective imagination.

Link: https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/beyond-the-globe-8th-triennial-of-contemporary-art-u3/