# NSK Retro-Avant-Garde

> The retro-avant-garde of Neue Slowenische Kunst, founded in Ljubljana in 1984 by Laibach, IRWIN and the Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, with Novi kolektivizem as its design department. Its posters, emblems, flags and NSK State passports lift socialist-realist, Nazi, religious and Suprematist images whole, join incompatible symbols in solemn, centred heraldry, and over-identify with power instead of mocking it. The 1987 Youth Day poster, reworked from a Nazi painting, is the best-known case.

- Period: 1980–present
- Where: Central Europe, Southern Europe
- Origin: Trbovlje and Ljubljana, Slovenia (then Yugoslavia); Laibach formed in Trbovlje in 1980, Neue Slowenische Kunst was founded in Ljubljana in 1984, with Novi kolektivizem as its design department
- Branch: Postmodern
- Also known as: Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), New Collectivism (Novi kolektivizem), Laibach Kunst, Retrogarde, retro principle
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/nsk-retro-avantgarde/

## Use it with care

NSK's sources include Nazi propaganda, and its emblem incorporates John Heartfield's swastika of axes: taken out of its context such imagery reads as endorsement rather than critique, and showing Nazi symbols is restricted by law in Germany and several other countries. The black cross, the NSK coat of arms and the NSK passport belong to living artists who still use them, so do not copy them. Make a new quotation from public-domain state imagery, and only for a setting that can carry the provocation and make its critical frame clear. The NSK passport, an art project that is not valid for travel, has been taken for a real document: there are stories of holders crossing a border on one when their Bosnian passport failed in the 1990s, and by 2007 a growing number of applicants from one town in Nigeria treated it, in IRWIN's words, as 'a viable document'. Never make a mock passport, ID card, stamp or banknote that could be mistaken for, or used as, a real state document.

## How it works

- Quote the iconography of power as a readymade: lift a worker, a heroic nude, a cross or a coat of arms from socialist-realist, Nazi, religious or avant-garde sources and set it down whole, signed by the collective rather than by an author.
- Join symbols from incompatible ideologies in one emblem, such as Malevich's black cross inside an industrial cog with stag antlers and a thorn branch, and present the result as a single, coherent state insignia.
- Never wink: centre the image on one axis, keep it solemn and monumental, and let the over-identification carry the critique.
- Hold colour to black, white and grey, with red as the one spot ink; reduce figures to flat black silhouettes, carved line or high-contrast reproductions.
- Make the paraphernalia of a state the medium: posters, flags, armbands, coats of arms, passports, stamps, letterheads and merchandise.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (defining)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (characteristic)
- [Collage & layering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/collage-and-layering/) (occasional)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (defining)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (occasional)
- [Repetition & rhythm](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/repetition-and-rhythm/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Wide letterspacing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/wide-letterspacing/) (characteristic)
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (characteristic)
- [Script](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/script/) (occasional)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (occasional)
- [Transitional serif](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/transitional-serif/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (defining)
- [Dark ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dark-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)

### Form & shape
- [Geometric primitives](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/) (characteristic)
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (characteristic)
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (characteristic)

### Surface & texture
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (characteristic)
- [Carved line](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/carved-line/) (characteristic)
- [Photocopy & distress](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/photocopy-and-distress/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Emblems & badges](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/emblems-and-badges/) (defining)
- [Folk & sacred symbols](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/folk-and-sacred-symbols/) (characteristic)
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (occasional)
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Found & vernacular imagery](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/found-and-vernacular-imagery/) (defining)
- [Treated photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/) (defining)
- [Photomontage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/photomontage/) (occasional)
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (characteristic)
- [Screen printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/screen-printing/) (characteristic)
- [Textile & craft](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/textile-and-craft/) (occasional)
- [Architecture & signage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/architecture-and-signage/) (occasional)

### Tone & intent
- [Authoritative & institutional](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/authoritative-and-institutional/) (defining)
- [Nostalgic & retro](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/nostalgic-and-retro/) (defining)
- [Ironic & self-aware](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ironic-and-self-aware/) (characteristic)
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (characteristic)
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (characteristic)
- [Spiritual & sacred](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/spiritual-and-sacred/) (occasional)

Avoids: Playful & witty, Warm & approachable, Dynamic asymmetry, Full polychrome, Experimental & distorted, Pastel, Rounded & pill, Broken grid

Palette: #121212, #ebe5d6, #b31b1b, #8c8c88, #3b3b38

Typefaces: Heavy block sans capitals for the name LAIBACH on the 1980 Thrower posters, Constructed mixed-case display capitals of the 'NEUE SLOWENISCHE KUNST' wordmark under the NSK coat of arms, Brush-script display lettering ('Ausstellung Laibach kunst', 1983; 'Dan Mladosti', 1987), Wide-spaced sans capitals for venue and date lines ('GALERIJA ŠKUC', 1983), Bold serif headline capitals ('BUY VICTORY', 1991)

Known for: Laibach, 'Metalec' (The Thrower, or Metal Worker), one of the group's first three posters (1980): a worker raising a hammer, taken from a Yugoslav socialist-realist poster and reduced to a black silhouette above the name LAIBACH; Laibach, posters for Rdeči revirji (Red District), Trbovlje (27 September 1980): the authorities banned the whole event before it opened over the posters' 'improper and irresponsible' use of Malevich's black crosses, and only the night poster action took place; Laibach, 'Ausstellung Laibach Kunst', silkscreen poster for Galerija ŠKUC, Ljubljana (21 April 1983); Laibach, 'MB 84 Memorandum' (1984), used as a poster for performances while the group's name was banned; Novi kolektivizem (Dejan Knez, Miran Mohar, Darko Pokorn, Roman Uranjek), coat of arms of NSK, their first design for the collective, with the 'Neue Slowenische Kunst' wordmark; Novi kolektivizem, Dan mladosti (Youth Day) poster (1987), reworking Richard Klein's Nazi painting The Third Reich: Allegory of Heroism with a Yugoslav flag, a dove and the Youth Day emblem; Novi kolektivizem, 'Buy Victory' poster (28 June 1991), pasted up around Ljubljana during the Ten-Day War; IRWIN, Was ist Kunst, a series of several hundred paintings in heavy, often black frames, on motifs from Laibach Kunst

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Grew out of: [Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/socialist-realism.md) (1932–1989)
- Influenced by: [Suprematism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/suprematism.md) (1915–1925)
- Influenced by: [Russian Constructivism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/constructivism.md) (1917–1934)
- Influenced by: [Dada](https://stylogeny.com/styles/dada.md) (1916–1924)
- Alike in its design choices: [Chicano Screenprint Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/chicano-poster.md) (1965–present), 66% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Stencil Street Art](https://stylogeny.com/styles/stencil-street-art.md) (1978–present), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [South African Resistance Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/anti-apartheid-poster.md) (1978–1994), 63% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Latin American Feminist Protest Graphics (Ni Una Menos and the Green Wave)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/marea-verde-graphics.md) (2015–present), 60% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/act-up-gran-fury.md) (1987–1995), 59% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Solidarność & Polish Underground Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/solidarnosc-graphics.md) (1980–1989), 59% alike

## Sources

- MG+MSUM (Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana), NSK from Kapital to Capital, exhibition site, curated by Zdenka Badovinac: pages on NSK, Laibach (with 'Ausstellung Laibach Kunst PM', 1983, silkscreen), IRWIN and New Collectivism (coat of arms, Youth Day poster after Richard Klein's The Third Reich: Allegory of Heroism, 'Buy Victory', 28 June 1991, NSK State passport and insignia): https://nsk.mg-lj.si/nsk/ , https://nsk.mg-lj.si/artist/laibach/ , https://nsk.mg-lj.si/artist/irwin/ , https://nsk.mg-lj.si/artist/new-collectivism/
- Eda Čufer, 'Behind the poster: Day of Youth', House of European History, Brussels: https://historia.europa.eu/en/our-work/news/behind-poster-day-youth
- Culture.si, 'Novi kolektivizem (NK)' (members, 1987 Youth Day competition, BIO 1994 award for Laibach merchandising): https://culture.gov.si/en/Novi_kolektivizem_(NK)
- Culture.si, 'Neue Slowenische Kunst - NSK State' (NSK State launched 1992; Embassy and Consulate events from Moscow 1992): https://culture.gov.si/en/Neue_Slowenische_Kunst_-_NSK_State
- Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 'NSK from Kapital to Capital' exhibition guide: https://garagemca.org/en/exhibition/nsk-from-kapital-to-capital/materials/putevoditel-po-vystavke-nsk-ot-kapitala-k-kapitalu-nsk-from-kapital-to-capital-exhibition-guide
- Stevphen Shukaitis, 'Overidentification and/or bust?', Variant 37 (on the NSK logo combining Laibach's Malevich cross, Heartfield's axe swastika, an industrial cog and antlers): https://variant.org.uk/37_38texts/10Overident.html
- Winifred Griffin, 'NSK: Retro-Spection', ARTMargins (2001), on Laibach posters such as 'MB 84 Memorandum' (1984): https://artmargins.com/?p=4416
- Laibach WTC, 'Metal Worker, 1980/2017' (one of the group's first three posters, after a Yugoslav socialist-realist poster): https://wtc.laibach.org/products/the-thrower-1980-2017
- Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, 'Laibach: We come in peace' (2012), on the Thrower woodcut and the black cross in a gear: https://stacion.org/en/Identity-Restoration-Reloaded/93
- Laibach, 'Ausstellung Laibach Kunst' / Red District (the whole Trbovlje event of 27 September 1980 banned before its opening; only the night postering action took place): https://www.laibach.org/ausstellung-laibach-kunst-red-district-black-cross
- IRWIN, 'NSK Passport Holders, 2007–2008', Autostrada Biennale, Prizren (NSK passports used to cross borders from Sarajevo despite not replacing a bona fide document; applicants from one town in Nigeria, for whom it had become 'a viable document'; video 'NSK Citizens from Nigeria', 2007): https://autostradabiennale.org/exhibitions/nsk-passport-holders/
- Wikipedia: Laibach (formation 1 June 1980, Rdeči revirji ban, 1983 name ban, The Thrower/Metalec woodcut); Neue Slowenische Kunst (1987 Youth Day poster; NSK passports and postage stamps, an art project not valid for travel); IRWIN

---

From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “NSK Retro-Avant-Garde”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/nsk-retro-avantgarde/