Fragments for studies on art organisations

The publication Fragments for Studies on Art Organisation is part of the project Art Organisation which has been conceived as an introduction to the research of the ways of (self) organisation, group action and working conditions (collective production and collective generation) of ‘non-institutional’ artistic practices in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav space. Our interest in art organisation goes beyond artistic frameworks. What we are really interested in is how to act collectively in society today.

During 2017, our work on the project began with interviewing participants and protagonists of the Contemporary Art Scene in Yugoslavia. This work continued in 2018 and 2019, when the respondents were theoreticians and art historians, as well as artists who realized their practice through group art work. The result of this research is an archive consisting of interviews, documentation of works of art and critical texts. In July 2020, a series of public talks Vectors of collective imagination in art were conducted through webinars – a collaborative research working group analyzed and reviewed the materials created during the project. This working group created a model for collective critical rewriting of the art history of the (post) Yugoslav cultural space and critical action with the generated archive. The webinar format for these sessions was chosen due to the changed circumstances that arose during COVID-19.

The result of the collective analysis contributed to the authors of the essays improving the conclusions and theses that are integrated in the collection ‘Fragments for Studies on Art Organizations’, which in its final form contains the following texts:
– Ana Vilenica: A View on the Fragments on the Yugoslav Artistic ‘Non-institutional’ Collective (self-)Organisation
– Lina Džuverović: Collaborative Actions, Continued Omissions: Notes Towards a Feminist Revisiting of Yugoslav Collectives in the 1960s and 1970s – the Case of the OHO Group
– Milica Pekić: Art Collectives as Platforms of Confrontations – a Case Study: January / February, Assassination
– Stevan Vuković: “Maj 75” and “Prvi broj (First issue)” in the Framework of Infrastructural Activism
– Andrej Mirčev: The Split and Dialectic of the Collective: the Case of Kugla Glumište
– Leila Topić: ‘Check this out, man!’ – Potentially Important, Activities of the Group ViGo and Improvisational Music
– Ana Peraica: 24 Hours Inside the “Red Peristyle”