A Slow Burning Fire: The Rise of the New Art Practice in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia’s diverse and interconnected art scenes from the 1960s to the 1980s, linked to the country’s experience with socialist self-management.

 

In Yugoslavia from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, state-supported Student Cultural Centers became incubators for new art. This era’s conceptual and performance art—known as Yugoslavia’s New Art Practice—emerged from a network of diverse and densely interconnected art scenes that nurtured the early work of Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivekovic, Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), and others. In this book, Marko Ilic offers the first comprehensive examination of the New Art Practice, linking it to Yugoslavia’s experience with socialist self-management and the political upheavals of the 1980s.