International Centre of Graphic Arts

The International Centre of Graphic Arts (Slovene: Mednarodni grafični likovni center) is a museum and cultural institution in Ljubljana, Slovenia, dedicated to the preservation, study, and presentation of printmaking and contemporary art from the twentieth century to the present. Founded in 1986, it serves as the institutional home and organizer of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, an event with an uninterrupted tradition dating back to 1955. The centre holds the largest Slovenian collection of prints and art publications created after World War Two, comprising more than 10,000 works on paper and related objects. It also functions as an active production house, operating print studios and publishing limited editions of original prints.

The idea for the centre emerged in the mid-1970s as a direct consequence of the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts and the enormous growth of contemporary printmaking in Slovenia, particularly associated with the Ljubljana Graphic Art School. Zoran Kržišnik, the secretary of the Biennial and then-director of the Museum of Modern Art, advanced the concept. The City of Ljubljana founded the institution in 1986 to give the Biennial its own place, and the centre took over the organization of the event from the Museum of Modern Art. In 1981, the foundation commenced its first activities by adapting Tivoli Mansion, and the centre officially moved into the renovated building in 1987. Kržišnik directed the institution for most of its history. The Biennial itself, initiated in 1955 by Božidar Jakac, positioned Ljubljana and Slovenian art in a global context and influenced similar events worldwide. After a period of crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s when original handwork overshadowed printmaking, the Biennial experienced a revival in the 1990s. In 2001, the 24th Biennial initiated a transition to a post-media paradigm, expanding beyond traditional graphic arts into urban spaces, mass media, and billboards, with the centre acting as the producer of art projects for the first time.

The centre's collections constitute the largest Slovenian collection of prints and art publications created after World War Two and the only public collection of modernist prints in the country. The holdings contain solely works on paper and related objects, including prints, art publications, drawings, and photographs. The main collection consists of more than 4,500 items created since 1945, encompassing both Slovenian and international graphic works, as well as approximately 400 artist books and other art publications. Since 2000, the collection has grown by approximately 4,000 items of artist-created printed matter, which includes artist books, posters, newspapers, magazines, postcards, printed invitations, greeting cards, fanzines, and artists archives. A specific Collection of Prints and Original Printed Ephemera was established in 2000 to house these materials, which include all artistic newspaper projects of the Vienna museum in progress published in Der Standard daily from 1990 to 2002 and all issues of the hybrid Point d'Ironie newspaper. Works can be accessed by the public in the centre's Study Room.

The international collection features works by representatives of the École de Paris, such as Osip Zadkin and Pablo Picasso, alongside established international artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Nancy Spero, Victor Vasarely, Emilio Vedova, Maria Bonomi, Mangelos, Ivan Picelj, Dóra Maurer, Malle Leis, and Görgy Galántai. The Slovenian holdings include complete or partial oeuvres of the nation's finest printmakers, such as Lojze Spacal, Vladimir Makuc, Danilo Jejčič, Janez Bernik, and Tinca Stegovec. In 2010, Stegovec donated her entire print oeuvre, including her matrices, four drawings, and a large portion of her library, to the centre. The artist book collection includes works by the OHO Group, West East Publications edited by Franci Zagoričnik, Damien Hirst, Christian Boltansky, Sol Lewitt, Roman Opalka, Daniel Buren, Dieter Roth, Reiner, Yves Klein, and James Lee Byars. Notable acquisitions also include Bernard Villers' 54 publications entitled Publishing House Remorqueur and Nouveau Remorqueur Archives.

The centre is situated in Ljubljana's Tivoli Park and is divided among three historic structures. Its primary seat since 1986 has been Tivoli Mansion (Grad Tivoli), a neoclassical building positioned at the end of the Jakopič Promenade, which is the park's oldest building with a history dating back to the 13th century. The mansion was the site of conflict between the Counts of Celje and the Austrian Emperor Frederick III, was rebuilt by Baron George Apfaltrern in the 17th century, and was acquired by the Ljubljana Jesuits in 1601, who transformed its surroundings into a promenade and natural amphitheater. Since 2017, the centre has also operated the Švicarija, a historic park cafe building repurposed as a creative center and artist residency. In 2023, the institution expanded to include the Plečnik Auditorium. The exterior walls of Tivoli Mansion feature ceramic mosaics by the street artist Invader, inspired by 1970s computer games and pixel aesthetics.

The International Centre of Graphic Arts is located at the end of the Jakopič Promenade in Tivoli Park in Ljubljana. It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm, and the museum shop is accessible without an exhibition ticket. The institution organizes regular contemporary art exhibitions, staging four to eight shows in non-biennial years, alongside workshops in techniques like silkscreen, lithography, woodcut, linocut, drypoint, and etching. It hosts the Summer in Tivoli festival every June, which culminates in Summer Museum Night, a national promotional campaign initiated and coordinated by the centre's Museum Adviser Lili Šturm starting in 2003. The centre offers guided tours, educational programs for children and families, and symposia. The Švicarija building hosts artist residencies and open studio days twice a year, in May and autumn. The centre is a member of the International Biennial Association and has been part of the international Perennial Biennial project since 2018.