Chapter Introduction : IN Book: Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Abstract

This edited volume is centered on the production, discussion, and consumption of contemporary art in the post-Yugoslav space now. Authors in this volume demonstrate how and why contemporary art discourses have continued to overcome chronic difficulties in local cultural economies since the dissolution of the common federal space of socialist Yugoslavia. This book focuses on socialist Yugoslavia’s prevailing cultural legacies of anti-fascism, non-alignment, queer and feminist movements, and socially engaged art, which inform and shape contemporary critiques of neoliberal capitalist conditions in the arts. Chapters are rooted in ongoing global challenges in contemporary art: a universal exhaustion through over-work (on the part of the artist/art worker) and over-stimulation (the audience); the structural weakness of contemporary art as a set of institutional activities; and the instrumentalization of art. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, gender studies, Slavic studies, politics, and post-conflict studies.