Alienation Effects

Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91

Subjects: Theater and Performance, Art, Art History, History, European History
Paperback : 9780472053148, 382 pages, 30 B&W Halftones, 6 x 9, June 2016
Hardcover : 9780472073146, 382 pages, 30 B&W illustrations, 6 x 9, June 2016
Open Access : 9780472900589, 382 pages, 30 B&W illustrations, June 2016

This open access version made available with the support of libraries participating in Knowledge Unlatched.
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Examines the interplay of artistic, political, and economic performance in the former Yugoslavia and reveals their inseparability

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Description

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 that the 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 Žižek, as well as performance and conceptual artists that deserve wider, international attention.

Branislav Jakovljevic is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University

“A brilliant and much-needed book relevant to debates in art and performance away from hackneyed Western European/American ideas of neoliberalism and late capitalism—or the tendency to ignore shifts in political and economic structures altogether while mystifying trends in art. One of the most rigorous and original books on performance… . In a way that few academic books achieve, it movingly weaves personal history with incisively theorized political, economic, and art/performance histories.”
—Amelia Jones, McGill University

“This unique book explores unfamiliar aspects and nodes between artistic and economic performances in Yugoslavia.… thoroughly researched, well documented and provocatively written, [it] sheds a different light onto a tragic history, with ample explanations that make it comprehensive even to those less familiar with this part of the world and its recent history.”
—Aleksandra Jovicevic, La Sapienza University

Winner: Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) 2017 Outstanding Book Award

- ATHE

"An unrelenting, comprehensive, and profoundly honest forensic dissection of the complex network of events leading to Yugoslavia's dissolution...This review can only begin to indicate the wealth of scholarship and the depth of original thought at work in this volume, a landmark work of rigor and passion."
--The Drama Review

- The Drama Review

"Jakovljevic´’s compellingly written and carefully researched volume will prove valuable for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the interplay between conceptual art and politics, and for scholars dealing with performance and Balkan studies."
--Modern Drama

- Modern Drama

"Slow-going in the best sense of the term: less a page-turner than a page returner. The analyses are carefully constructed to account for a range of performance labors and scales of reception while sustaining singularity, historiographic nuance, and theoretical sophistication."
--The Brecht Yearbook

- Brecht Yearbooks

Winner: New York University (NYU) 2018 Joe A. Callaway Prize for Best Book in Drama or Theatre

- NYU Joe A. Callaway Prize