JSTOR

Alienation Effects, Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia; 1945-91, Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia; 1945-91

Author

Jakovljevic; Branislav

Year

2016

Publisher

University of Michigan Press

Type

BOOK

Category

Performing Arts

Language

English

Pages

382

ISBN

978-0-47207-314-6

Link

Last Update

27-Oct-2024

Keywords

Performing Arts

Description

In the 1970s, Yugoslavia emerged as a dynamic environment for conceptual and performance art. At the same time, it pursued its own form of political economy of socialist self-management. Alienation Effects argues that a deep relationship existed between the democratization of the arts and industrial democracy, resulting in a culture difficult to classify. The book challenges the assumption that the art emerging in Eastern Europe before 1989 was either “official” or “dissident” art; and shows thatthe break up of Yugoslavia was not a result of “ancient hatreds” among its peoples but instead came from the distortion and defeat of the idea of self-management. The case studies include mass performances organized during state holidays; proto-performance art, such as the 1954 production of Waiting for Godot in a former concentration camp in Belgrade; student demonstrations in 1968; and body art pieces by Gina Pane, Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic, and others. Alienation Effects sheds new light on the work of well-known artists and scholars, including early experimental poetry by Slavoj Žižek, as well as performance and conceptual artists that deserve wider, international attention.

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