OCCUPYING SPACE.
NEW PERFORMATIVE ART PRACTICES IN YUGOSLAVIA
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Author: Jasmina Založnik
Series: Transformations, Book No. 50
Series Editors: Aleš Mendiževec and Gregor Moder
Edited by: Aleš Mendiževec and Ula Talija Pollak
Translated by: Urban Belina
Accompanying text: Pia Brezavšček
Proofreading: Tatjana Capuder
Index of names: Jasmina Založnik in Urban Belina
Design and layout: Ajdin Basić, Špela Razpotnik
Published by: Maska, Institute for Publishing, Cultural and Production Activities
This book was published as part of a cultural project co-financed by the Slovenian Book Agency in 2023.
Publisher: Maska, Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia
Published with the support of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia within the project (NON)ALIGNED MOVEMENTS, co-financed by the European Union.
Ljubljana, 2024
ISBN 978-961-6572-72-9
COBISS.SI-ID 189768451
“Performance art practices” are those practices that dealt with and emerged from the body – they reconstructed the understanding of the body and explored its “(re)presentations, uses and thoughts”. In discussing these practices, the author conceptually relies on Michel Foucault’s theory and his understanding of body and space, and through the cases discussed shows how corporeality became an “equivalent language in art”. She highlights the heterogeneous nature of these practices, which often emerged at the intersections of different disciplines and thus transcended the bounded fields of theatre and other forms of performing arts.
Založnik also focuses on the political context of Yugoslav self-managing socialism and shows the impact of new performance art practices on its regime. Finally, the author skillfully confronts us with the question of to what extent this regime censored cultural practices and to what extent it enabled them, and what we can see today in these rebellious artistic bodies, where freedom and power confronted each other.
Excerpt on the back page
The book discusses artists from the former Yugoslavia who were active from 1965 onwards and whose artistic practice marked a departure from the conventional understanding of the work of art. These actors no longer felt nostalgia for post-war revolutionary achievements. They were more motivated by the worldview of the youth in Yugoslavia, which is why they wanted to speak out about their problems and implement processes of self-management in their organizations. In addition, due to the relatively high level of liberalism at that time and the strong influence of Western trends, their efforts for cultural transformation found fertile ground in a number of imported theories and practices, whether Western or some Soviet and other influences from the Non-Aligned Movement. Among other things, the influences of historical avant-gardes, Weimar cabaret, Dadaism, Neo-Dadaism, Fluxus, Post-Fluxus, musical experiments (Cage), Artaud, postmodern dance (improvisation, new forms of choreography), Grotowski, Schechner, Brook, Kaprow, conceptualism, punk and new wave are noticeable, and together with other artistic movements of the time, they triggered locally (culturally) specific interpretations that stimulated a complex development of artistic tactics in the younger generation of creators, which led to the formation of new movements in mixed media, visual and performing arts.T