The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978

artistic and cultural activity in the classical sense, but an
attempt at defining it in a broader context than that of
semantic changes in art and culture.
Writing about the group of artists presented in this text
in the catalogue for "October 72" Urkom tried to define their
work: "It would be wrong to treat us as a group with a
definite programme: it is also true to say that we are not a set
of people with totally different interests. We have not been
brought together by the same attitude to art but rather by
similar attitudes to life." However, it seems justified to say
that the work they created as a group reflects their decision
to make art not because it already exists but because it has
to be made in a very definite way. It was their critical stand to
the folkloristic, traditional sentimentalism that led to the
reflective re-examination of artistic practice. Their isolation
from the majority of the public that existed from the very
beginning of their activitiy did not, however, determine their
subsequent, individual work and attitudes: the reflective
principle of work and the re-examination of art became their
objective and can be observed, in different ways, in the output
of each of them.
In the period from 1973 to 1975 Marina Abramovi performed
A series of actions entitled Rhythm (Figs. 243, 244, 246) and thus
established herself firmly in the form called Body Art. In
these actions the body and the operations performed on it
create a situation in which the body the subject
becomes the object of the acton A great deal has been
written about Abramovi's Body Art in Yugoslavia: she is also
well known in Europe because her performances have been
seen in many European galleries.
Since 1975/76 Marina Abramovi has been working with the
Dutch artist Ulay. Since 1977 they have been living in a caravan
and touring Europe with shows which they call 'Art Vital'. In
these actions Abramovi brings her existence to the borderline
between life and death, which gives her actions an ethical-
-mythical character. All the decisions concerning the various
operations and actions are governed by the principle that in
art one should go to the very end. Most of her actions and
events become an "all-embracing happening" by means of a
video tape placed outside the area on which the action is taking
place so that the audience participates in it. This technique
was used in the Liberation of the Voice (Abramovi, "5th April
Meeting", the SCC, 1976) and Sighing-Expiring (Abramovi-
-Ulay, "6th April Meeting", the SCC, 1977).
In 1977 Abramovi and Ulay used a partition to decrease the
door area and stood in the nude on each side of the partition,
thus leaving the spectators a gap of eight inches to pass from
one room into the other ("The Art Fair", Bologna). In the
action Exchange of Identity Marina Abramovi was sitting
in the window of a prostitute, while the prostitute was playing
the role of the artist by attending the opening of Abramovi's
exhibition at the Appel Gallery.
By repeating some actions and rhythms for a long time, which
is a rule in the joint work of Abramovi and Ulay, the body is
brought to the state of active rest. In Relations in Space
("10th Paris Biennale", 1977, Fig. 247) they drove their car in
circles in front of the Museum of Modern Art for sixteen hours
until they ran out of petrol. In Relations in Time (Galleria G 7,
Bologna, Fig. 249) they sat back to back, their hair plaited;
the action began in the morning and finished at 11 p.m.
Marina Abramovi seldom explains her art at length: her brief
comments are usually at the same time instructions for the
performance of the action; for instance in the action Art must
be beautiful the artist must be beautiful (Copenhagen, 1975;
the film Cinema-Notes. Lutz Becker, SCC 1975).
The work of Slobodan Era-Milivojevi is not very
well documented partly because he stopped working with
these artists in 1973 and did not exhibit for some time, to
reappear on the art scene only in 1976.
Milivojevi's art manifests itself in actions, performances and
happenings and more rarely in definitive works. Its
interpretation is more difficult because the artist creates very
subjective and closed systems based primarily on his private
terminology, which always presupposes incredible premises.
Because of this very fact, Milivojevi's work corresponds to
that kind of work in art which reflects a systematic resistance to
systematic work in art. In this sense, Milivojevi is interested in
the concrete, direct work on something, as production of the
work, which in turn leads to his interest in performances and
happenings. His definitive works have the same characeristic:
a series of drawings of a comb on graph paper ("Objects and
Projects", the SCC. 1971); the same procedure can be
observed in the picture Composition (1971), which has all the
qualities of a mathematically calculated structure and system.
The same applies to the drawing entitled The Belt (1971).
In his objects-systems Milivojevi introduces the idea of
enlarging the systems as grid structures on an infinite scale:
the object Designs (one-man show, the SCC, 1972), the object
Saturn (the gallery of the Youth House, 1972); the object
Bathroom, composed of a collection of ceramic tiles piled up
in a cube or arranged in the shape of cross forming the open
plan of the cube ("Young Artists and Young Critics", Museum
of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 1972).
Milivojevi applies the same system of enlarged systems in
performances in which the action is based on an endless
multiplication of its factors or their enlargement: Medex
(Aspects, Teatr u podrumu Theatre in the Cellar, Atelje 212,
1972), Swan Lake (the SCC, 1973, Fig. 265), Sleeping Dogs a
night performance (Bitef the Belgrade International Theatre
Festival, 1977).
Milivojevi's works constructed from ready-made objects
bear a superficial resemblance to Pop Art, but in the
conception and the way the material is treated they are
different. One of the possible explanations is that Milivojevi's
work is, by its nature, a genuine life phenomenon and does
not in fact belong to any of the current phenomena in the
contemporary practice of art, though it does show some
characteristics of Fluxus, Pop Art, Body Art, Psychedelic Art,
Performance Art and Happenings.
Most of Nea Paripovi's work in recent years has
revolved around film, photography and the poster (Figs.
250-251). His approach to art is close to the principles of
Group 143 (Belgrade). with whom he has been associated
since 1975, and is based on the demonstration of the work
which is being created.
From the photographs of cone of the participants of the 1973
Edinburgh Art Festival (their heads were photographed from
the back) Paripovi made a series of works. In the
Possibilities of the Camera from 1 .0 (1974) he treats the
technical nature of photography and the camera in an
analytical way. He offers the idea of the photograph as an
object and not as the presentation of certain literary and
pictorial contents. The work, which consEsts of a series of
photographs entitled The Process, is the first of a number of
works in which Paripovi appears as the only protagonist of
the action.
The work entitled 1942-2001 (a series of 40 photographs)
shows the artist in various situations of everyday behaviour.
Another subject of the same work is the artist walking around
the town, which is further explored in the film Nea Paripovi
1977. This film (camera Jovan eki) and the text entitled
"Report on the Movements of Nea Paripovi, 31 Vojvode
Brane, Belgrade, on 25th October 1976" ("Art. Irony etc.," Happy
New Art Gallery, the SCC, 1977) mark the beginning of
Paripovi's dossier on himself. In 1976 he also made a
photo-book, The Photo Dossier, Nose Paripovi 1976 (the SCC,
1977).
In 1977 Paripovi made a film in which the camera follows
him on a walk around the town along unfamiliar routes full of
various obstacles which he must overcome.
The film has all the characteristics of a feature film
(camera Jovan eki). His latest film, which he made with
Miko uvakovi, includes three slow-motion scenes: 1. his
own face covered with red paint, his hand takes the cigarette
to the mouth; his face covered with blue paint, he lights the
cigarette: 3. his face covered with black paint, his fingers
pass through his hair. In this, like in his previous film,
Paripovi adopts a different attitude towards the spectators:
while in his earlier works he distances himself from the viewer,
now he establishes a kind of "dialogue', with him. In this way
the Photo Doss.er and Report on the movements as well as
the script for the film Two Palms on the Happy Island are
endowed with a more human dimension and a touch of humour.
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