Lately, Catalan separatists have started making parallels between their situation and the independence of Slovenia. Foreshadowing yesterday’s suspended declaration of independence in the Catalan parliament, it had been suggested that Catalonia might do just this because Slovenia had earned international recognition after agreeing to a moratorium on the effects of its own declaration of independence in the Summer of 1991. It is perhaps particularly appropriate that in the 1980s Slovenia spawned Neue Slowenische Kunst, an avant-garde (though they called themselves retro-garde) collective engaging in political performance art around the concept of the state. Here I argue that last night’s Catalan declaration of independence took place on a symbolic plane, and that the clash with the formal legal expectations of observers is very much like that elicited by performance art, down to causing offence and anger at taboo-breaking. One could call the events of last night Catalonia’s Žižek moment, after Slovenian philosopher-cum-performance-artist Slavoj Žižek, who is loosely associated with the NSK art collective.
Independence as performance art
Outside the Reservation 