45 minutes, 59 seconds

Laibach
Nova Akropola

A few years ago, the museum where Mrs. Total Time works curated an exhibit on all things NSK and Laibach. Paintings, posters, manifestoes, video, sound--it was pretty comprehensive. But it was also a bit strange. For one thing, it's always odd to experience a museum exhibit about something very close to the fabric of your own life. You live with this music and imagery for years, and it becomes sort of like the wallpaper. You stop noticing it. Then all of a sudden it's in a brightly lit museum gallery, and you're forced to see it--literally--in a new light.

Walking through the galleries, I began to understand once again how weird Laibach's music and images must seem to most people. It's a feeling I probably hadn't had since I first heard Laibach, back in my college days in the late '80s. But it was a good reminder: Yes, this music is unnerving, bewildering, threatening, transgressive, and, yes, a little goofy. I started seeing Laibach through other people's eyes. That older man standing there watching the "Tanz Mit Laibach" video in one gallery. The couple gazing at the Kapital-era live-show uniform on display. What did they think? Could they make heads or tails of it all?

To her credit, the curator (my wife's boss) did a fantastic job of using wall text and labels to walk people through NSK's origins and philosophy. She deftly threaded the connections between the breakup of Yugoslavia and the formation of Laibach, and she'd obtained an amazing array of works and objects from the band itself that helped illuminate the complex themes and worldview behind NSK.

I guess that part of it was weird too, though. Museum exhibits have a way of exalting whatever it is they're exhibiting, and this was no exception. So it was strange to see objects so familiar to you hung so respectfully on a museum wall. I had a moment where I felt as if something that had been very much alive to me was now dead. Fortunately, that feeling passed. But Laibach will never again be just wallpaper.

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