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

Synopsis

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 Ž iž ek, as well as performance and conceptual artists that deserve wider, international attention.

Copyright:

2016

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780472121984

Related ISBNs:

9780472073146, 9780472053148

Publisher:

University of Michigan Press

Date of Addition:

06/04/16

Copyrighted By:

University of Michigan Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Drama, Plays and Theater

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.