Description

This is a rare Yugoslav / Slovenian punk publication, dedicated only to poetry.

The magazine was published as the last number in a series of 4 irregularly issued publications Viks, by the Gallery (Galerija) ŠKUC, a non-governmental cultural organization, still active today, together with a Student organization FORUM. Galerija ŠKUC was founded in 1978 and became the center of the countercultures, such as independent artists, and punk and LGBT cultures.

Viks was the first magazine, which openly promoted LGBT culture, was printed in small numbers. The legendary second number was printed in pink and dedicated entirely to the history and presence of the LGBT culture in Yugoslavia.

The Viks magazines were thematic and issued irregularly almost as separate publications. This fourth and last number includes punk poetry, in some cases mixed with gay motifs.

Among the authors are:

Brane Bitenc (1962-2014) was one of the pioneers of the Yugoslav / Slovenian punk scene and founded bands Berlinski zid (The Berlin Wall, between 1978-1980) and in 1981 the groundbreaking Otroci socializma (The Children of the Socialism), whose music is still widely popular today. Bitenc was known from his teens on as a high-quality poet of punk lyrics.

Aleš Debeljak (1961-2016) was an awarded post-modernistic poet and between 1985-1988 an editor of the cultural literary magazine Problemi. After earning his PhD from the Syracuse University in New York, he became a professor at the Culturology department at the University of Ljubljana.

Esad BABAČIĆ (born 1965) is a Slovenian poet and a 1980s punk musician of Bosnian-Croatian descendant. Already as a teenager he started writing poetry and lyrics for his punk band Via Ofenziva, and at the age of 17 he won an award for best punk song on recently deceased Yugoslav president Josip Broz-Tito. Due his artistic work in at the time semi underground punk scene Babačić often got into trouble with the authorities, including for his performing Lili Marlen in a punk version, at the time still considered to be a Nazi song.

Brane Mozetič (born 1958), a post-modernist poet, a cultural worker and one of the pioneers of the gay movement in Slovenia / Yugoslavia, as a member of a committee of gay movies festivals and editor and author of publications.

Ivan Črnič (born 1960) is a poet, often employing occult motifs in his work. The design was made by the art group IRWIN, which was a part of the art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst or NSK (a German phrase meaning New Slovenian Art), a controversial political art movement, that formed in

Slovenia in 1984, deriving from the semi-underground punk movement.

The last pages include advertisements for the upcoming movie and theatre plays and for the previous publications.

All the issues are extremely rare. Only three libraries seem to hold an example of this issue (National and University Library of Ljubljana, Galerija Božidar Jakac – Kostanjevica na Krki, and City Library of Ljubljana).

Only the National and University Library of Ljubljana holds all four issues.

References: OCLC 441713208.