LE PINTO, Luca; NICOLAI, Olaf (eds.)
I Am Only the Housekeeper, but I Don’t Know…

On occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jože Plečnik (1872–1957), a key figure of the Modernist movement in architecture and creator of numerous buildings and monuments around the city of Ljubljana, in 2022 Luca Lo Pinto and Olaf Nicolai curated an exhibition titled I Am Only the Housekeeper, but I Don’t Know… in the Slovenian architect’s former home. The publication retraces the contemporary interventions undertaken by the curatorial duo, who invited 25 internationally recognised Slovenian and foreign artists, allowing them to enter the house through their own works to commemorate Plečnik’s oeuvre and place its reading into a different and more contemporary context. Drawing inspiration from a fictionalised letter ascribed to Urška, Plečnik’s hypothetical governess, the exhibition creates new perspectives within the house and accepts that “things can be a certain way, and that they can also be different,” as stated in Urška’s letter. [publishers’ note]

Works by John Armleder, H. C. Artmann, Nairy Baghramian, Avi Beracha, Pierre Bismuth, Monica Bonvicini, Pablo Bronstein, Michael Dean, Jason Dodge, Hansi Fuchs, Lena Grossmann, Ana Kučan, Janette Laverrière, Enzo Mari, Hana Miletić, Carsten Nicolai, Saša Pavček, Julie Peeters, Manfred Pernice, Florian Pumhösl, Fabio Quaranta, Ana Roš, Giovanna Silva, Mladen Stilinović, Diamond Stingily, Sophie Thun.

With photography by Giovanna Silva.

Published by Humboldt Books, 2025
Design by Julie Peeters with Laura Martens
Exhibition Catalogues