Bojana Videkanić, “Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945–1985”

In less than half a century, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia successfully defeated Fascist occupation, fended off dominating pressures from the Eastern and Western blocs, built a modern society on the ashes of war, created its own form of socialism, and led the formation of the Nonaligned Movement. This country’s principles and its continued battles, fought against all odds, provided the basis for dynamic and exceptional forms of art.

 

Drawing on archival materials, postcolonial theory, and Eastern European socialist studies, Nonaligned Modernism chronicles the emergence of late modernist artistic practices in Yugoslavia from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s. Situating Yugoslav modernism within postcolonial artistic movements of the twentieth century, Bojana Videkanic explores how cultural workers collaborated with others from the Global South to create alternative artistic and cultural networks that countered Western hegemony. Videkanic focuses primarily on art exhibitions along with examples of international cultural exchange to demonstrate that nonaligned art wove together politics and aesthetics, and indigenous, Western, and global influences.

 

An interdisciplinary book, Nonaligned Modernism highlights Yugoslavia’s key role in the creation of a global modernist ethos and international postcolonial culture.

 

The role of Yugoslav socialist art in emerging global modernisms.

 

Reviews

“A rich and original work, Nonaligned Modernism makes an important contribution to the study of art and the politics of culture in formerly socialist Europe, and by extension, to the current conversation within art history about modernist aesthetics and politics in non-dominant nations.” Adair Rounthwaite, University of Washington

 

Bojana Videkanic is assistant professor of visual culture at the University of Waterloo.

 

Table of Contents

Figures / ix

Acknowledgments / xv

Introduction / 3

1 From Socialist Realism to Yugoslav Alternative Aesthetic, 1945-1954 / 31

2 Coexistence, Cultural Diplomacy, and the Ascent of Socialist Modernism / 63

3 Nonaligned Modernism in the Making: Building Parallel Transnational Culture / 111

4 The Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts: Articulating Nonaligned Modernism / 176

Conclusion / 214

Notes / 221

Bibliography / 261

Index / 285

 

Details

320 Pages, 6 x 9

60 b&w images

ISBN 9780773559462

February 2020

 

https://www.mqup.ca/nonaligned-modernism-products-9780773559462.php