Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia, 1971–2001

Anja Foerschner (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

200 Seiten

2024
Bloomsbury Visual Arts (Verlag)
978-1-350-22921-1 (ISBN)

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Despite having become marginalized on the map of contemporary art since the wars of the 1990s, the regions of former Yugoslavia continue to be a hub of creative activity. Especially noteworthy is the strong presence of women artists, scholars, and activists whose deeply personal, yet highly political artwork is rooted in a long legacy of female artistic agency. Building on existing scholarship as well as original research, this book highlights how female figures – through art and exhibition making, writing, mentorship, and activism – have shaped the alternative art scene in former Yugoslavia and placed the region firmly on the map of the international post-avantgarde.

Using the founding of the Student Cultural Center Belgrade in 1971 as a starting point, the book details the pioneering work of women in the realm of curation, where they developed radical exhibition concepts and programs that furthered the development of the New Art Practice and embedded Yugoslavia firmly on the map of the international postwar-avantgardes. It highlights the agency of female artists in the then-novel realms of performance art, video art, and new media art and shows how their work has helped these disciplines to gain the impact they retain until the present day. What is more, it shows how female cultural workers have courageously used their work to further the discourse on gender, sexuality, and the female body and, at a time when they saw themselves stripped of basic rights by the chauvinist-nationalist regimes emerging after Yugoslavia’s breakup, formed a strong artistic and activist opposition.

Highlighting the role of women in the diversification of the ex-Yugoslavia states and its highly unique cultural and political landscape, this book addresses the noticeable gap in art historical scholarship that exists not only around Yugoslavia and its successor states, but especially on its female representatives.

Anja Foerschner is an art historian and curator of contemporary art focusing on feminist art, performance art, and art from the regions of Eastern Europe. She is the director of ECC Performance Art and a lecturer at ArtEZ University’s Home of Performance Practices, the Netherlands.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Curatorial Innovations
Women of the Student Cultural Center Belgrade
Mapping the Way: Drangularijum and In Another Moment
The April Meetings
Oktobar and Grupa
The 1978 Conference Drug-ca Žena: Žensko Pitanje: Novi Pristup?

2. Performance Art
Bitef and the Emergence of Performance Art
Katalin Ladik and Interdisciplinary Performance Work
Milica Mrda and the Reclaiming of the Female Body
PPF, Linije Sile, and the Commodified Female Body
Vlasta Delimar and the Liberation of Female Sexuality

3. Video Art
Bogdanka Poznanovic and the Emergence of Video and New Media Art
Meje Kontrole št. 4 and Video as a Political Tool

4. Social Activism and Political Art
Women’s Activism
Alma Suljevic and Artistic Resistance
Žaneta Vangeli and the Search for National Identity
Ema Kugler and Metaphors of Violence
Jelica Radovanovic and Woman as Symbol
Cultural Initiatives and Subversions: Dah Teatar and the Center for Cultural Decontamination

Coda: Where are We Now?

Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	24.08.2024
Zusatzinfo	32 bw illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-350-22921-0 / 1350229210
ISBN-13	978-1-350-22921-1 / 9781350229211
Zustand	Neuware