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DESSA GALLERY
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SI-1000 Ljubljana

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PHOTOGALLERY

PIRAN DAYS OF ARCHITECTURA

ARCHITECTURE. SCULPTURE. REMEMBRANCE. IN NOVI SAD

Hosting of the exhibition in Serbia

12. 10. 2023

poster.pdf
invitation.pdf

Hosting of the exhibition Architecture. Sculpture. Remembrance. The art of monuments of Yugoslavia 1945–1991 continues to travel throughout the republics of the former Yugoslavia.

On Thursday, October 12, at 7 p.m., the DESSA exhibition will be opened in Novi Sad, in the Museum of Contemporary Art of AP Vojvodina. The exhibition will be on display until November 5, 2023.

Under the same title, on November 3, 2023, the National Scientific Conference with international participation will be organized in the Cinema Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Novi Sad.

After the Conference, the presentation of the book Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia (Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, Ljubljana; Archive Books, Berlin; 2023) is planned, in conversation with the editors of the edition, Sanja Horvatinčić (Institute for the History of Art, Zagreb) and Beti Žerovc (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana).

At the opening of the exhibition music Bilečanka in arrangement of Zoran Predin was played. Since the DESSA curators could not attend the opening, the director of MSUV, Suzana Vuksanović, read the address sent by the director of DESSA, Maja Ivanič: ""The exhibition does not have any political connotation, but concerns on our extraordinary architectural/cultural heritage. At the same time, we wish that the monuments remain the dignity of remembering those who gave their lives for the idea of freedom. The exhibition still travels around the cities of the republic of former Yugoslavia: before Novi Sad, it was shown in Piran, Ljubljana, virtually at the 22nd Architecture Salon in Novi Sad, Koper, Novigrad , Zagreb, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Mostar and Belgrade. But our goal is to display it also at the Biennale in Venice. We would appreciate it if the Biennale were a joint project of all the institutions that participated in the organization and presentation of the exhibition."

Heroism and suffering

Yugoslavia was the most serious modernist endeavor in this region (Mari Žanin Čalić), and the memory of the Second World War represented the central, most important level in the process of forming a common Yugoslav identity. Through memorials (monumental sculptures and other memorial markings), i.e. spaces commemorating the victims of the Second World War, desirable forms of remembrance were constructed, as well as the dominant value systems of the Yugoslav socialist society: The Second World War was the central narrative of the revolutionary, social and national transformation of society.

A whole series of events and commemorations were created with the aim of strengthening the position of the state and its institutions, and the commemoration of military and civilian victims in this sense was a significant support in the establishment of a new socialist value system. Thus, in the first post-war period, the glorification of the victims of the fallen Soviet soldiers was supposed to strengthen the alliance with the Soviet Union, while later highlighting the partisan victims strengthened the idea of the autochthony of the liberation struggle and the autonomy of the Yugoslav anti-fascist movement during the war. In the following decades this would represent the foundation of a specific international position of Yugoslavia, supported by two more key political innovations: the concept of socialist self-management and the concept of the Yugoslav third way, i.e. the Non-Aligned Movement.

According to some data, over 100,000 monuments and memorials dedicated to the socialist revolution, the national liberation struggle and the victims of the Second World War (which lasted in this region from 1941 to 1945) were erected on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. In Vojvodina ‒ according to the available inventory of the state of numerous monuments to NOR/ National Liberation War from 1988 (Materials for the Study of Cultural Monuments of Vojvodina, Special Issue, 1988) ‒ there were about 2,000 monuments and memorials (the most numerous are memorial plaques, then figural compositions, busts, pyramids, obelisks, etc.). Monuments were erected to events, war offensives, important personalities, prominent fighters and unknown heroes, innocent victims of fascist terror, etc. with the basic motive of creating a place to remember heroes and pay tribute to victims: Public monuments were intended to mark the persistence and continuity of the revolution - they are synonymous with ideological and political power.

Monuments dedicated to the NOB (National Liberation Struggle) and the revolution as proof of the experience of war and partisan struggle are unequivocal strongholds of the construction of socialist Yugoslavia. On the other hand, in most cases when it comes to the construction of monuments in local areas, as a materialized need for a place of remembrance, piety and honoring, they represented an unavoidable factor in the formation of a culture of remembrance and revolutionary identity of local communities, as well as new areas of socialization (such as parks and squares).

The period from 1945 to 1991 is recognized as the era in which monuments and memorials dedicated to the NOB, victories and sufferings were erected intensively, programmatically and strategically, with considerable financial resources, in almost every populated place in Vojvodina.

When choosing the memorial monuments from Vojvodina, which were added to the exhibition, we were guided by the intention to single out those that are exclusively dedicated to civilian and innocent victims of the Second World War on the soil of Vojvodina, instead of memorial sculptures dedicated to celebrating the victory in the National Liberation Struggle, the socialist revolution and the anti-fascist struggle. The focus is on examples that do not celebrate heroism, but highlight the category of civilian victims, their suffering and places of remembrance, around which, over time, layers and deposits of memories were formed, supported by feelings of personal and collective losses, by evoking poignant memories, i.e. emotions as a consciously chosen field of communication. Collective memory and collective emotions, aestheticization of memory, examination of the emotional impact of sculpture are still insufficiently explored fields.

Today we are contemporaries of different, often strongly conflicted interpretations of the Second World War. New politics of memory since the beginning of the eighties of the 20th century, based on often negative interpretations of socialist ideology and the idea of Yugoslavism, have as their starting point the rejection of both scientific interpretations and historical facts, as well as works of art/products, i.e. monuments and memorials as symbols of the Yugoslav state and the implemented socialist revolution. Today's politics of memory/ remeberance further obscure the truth (or earlier truths), raising doubts about both the past and the present.

Through research on the relationship of the monumental heritage as a part of the cultural heritage, it is possible to identify the politics of memory, as well as the methods of oblivion/forgetting and erasure. Contribution of the guest exhibition at MoCAV, Architecture. Sculpture. Remembrance. The Art of Monuments of Yugoslavia is reflected precisely in this intention and aspiration to analyze the former, but also today's, contextualization and valorization of the NOB monuments.

*** The exhibition Architecture. Sculpture. Remembrance. The Art of Monuments of Yugoslavia 1945–1991 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina is realized as part of the project entitled Memorial Sculpture Dedicated to the NOB in Yugoslavia 1945-1991, by Suzana Vuksanović, art historian and the museum adviser of the MoCAV.

Under the same title, on November 3, 2023, the National Scientific Conference with international participation will be organized in the Cinema Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Novi Sad. Afterwards, a collection of papers will be published with the texts of the Conference participants from all the republics of the former Yugoslavia: Vladimir Kulić (Iowa State University), Slavica Stamatović Vučković (Faculty of Architecture, University of Montenegro), Nenad Lajbenšperger (Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Belgrade), Blagoja Varošanec (Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje), Jasmina Čubrilo, Ana Ereš, Vladana Putnik Prica (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade), Sabina Tanović (Delft University of Technology), Olga Manojlović Pintar (Institute for Recent History of Serbia, Belgrade), Vojislav Martinov (Museum of Vojvodina, Novi Sad) and Suzana Vuksanović (Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad).

Curators

Boštjan Bugarič, Kristina Dešman, Maja Ivanič, Špela Kuhar, Eva Mavsar, Špela Nardoni Kovač, Damjana Zaviršek Hudnik

Curator of the selection for the AP Vojvodina

Suzana Vuksanović

Organizers

Galerija DESSA, ab – arhitektov bilten, Architectuul, Muzej savremene umetnosti Vojvodine, Novi Sad

In media

_ 9. 11. 2023: VREME

https://www.vreme.com/kultura/politike-secanja-na-klizavom-terenu/?fbclid=IwAR2ZmgofeM8cSHNSHBLeEXqBxGU-tTLbFH2hByIwhS1sNKEc6IIwDq1cEJ0

_ 4. 11. 2023: KORZO portal

https://korzoportal.com/kultura-secanja-spomenici-i-spomen-obelezja-nob-a-na-tlu-jugoslavije/?fbclid=IwAR1-OZZ-jQSySEF6FwxlEPkExawMerqoDNjNqXLq_0UEE-1OpNdpE80GNeI

_ 03. 11. 2023: Mašina