The Yugoslav Art Space: Ješa Denegri in the First Person
/1
If the task of art criticism is to show that something is art, then the critics who wrote about new art forms in the 1960s and 1970s had a particularly difficult task. What’s more, art criticism—answering to the imperative of showing—intersected powerfully with curatorship. A critic who presents an artwork that need not have a material manifestation is engaging in curatorial work by default, since the text (as the critic’s medium) thereby becomes a platform for the presentation of artistic production.
As Ješa Denegri’s interviewers observed at one point during their conversations, he would usually begin his articles with this kind of preamble. The clumsy imitation of his inimitable style above paraphrases the assertion about art criticism made by one of his two acknowledged intellectual role models, the Italian art historian and critic Giulio Carlo Argan (the other being Miodrag Protić, the founding director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade). Denegri’s is certainly the most distinct voice amongst that generation of art critics who argued for and gave legitimacy to what came to be called “new art practices” in Yugoslavia. The present book makes this voice accessible to an international audience through a series of detailed interviews that the art historians and critics Jelena Vesić and Branislav Dimitrijević conducted with him from 2016 to 2019. While Denegri has been present in Yugoslav art criticism over the past six decades, these conversations focus on the 1960s and 1970s—the period that turned out to be the most dynamic in the history of the arts in socialist Yugoslavia. This comprehensive exploration of his work demonstrates his significance beyond Yugoslavia’s borders. Denegri (b. 1936) belongs to the generation of art critics, curators, and historians born just before the Second World War who played a crucial role in the transformation of art that took place during the 20th century’s second half. He shares this distinction with Harald Szeemann (b. 1933), Lucy Lippard (b. 1937), Achile Bonito Oliva (b. 1939), Seth Siegelaub (b. 1941), and Rosalind Kraus (b. 1941), to name just a few. But if he is the only figure from Eastern Europe who fits comfortably in such company, then it is not because he practiced his criticism and curatorship in the same way as did his Western peers.
What sets Denegri apart is the mode of writing that he developed over the decades. He is the master of short form, a Chekhov of art critics. While he did publish several monographs on artists and artists’ groups, his preferred critical medium is that of the short text—which he perfected. (Dimitrijević and Vesić made a judicious selection of his articles; these are interspersed between the interviews.) There is no significant Yugoslav or international artist, art movement, new medium, publication, or exhibition about which he did not write. Over the decades, hundreds of his articles were published in periodicals across Yugoslavia. That speaks not only to the breadth of Denegri’s interests and his sheer intellectual curiosity, but also to the highly developed magazine and journal culture that existed in the country. His lack of interest in grand theories of art, periods, and styles suggests that he is, at his core, a non-systemic thinker, drawn to artists who are similarly non-systemic in their work. This does not, however, entail the absence of any important overarching ideas that would hold together the vast mosaic of texts that he produced over the decades—and Vesić and Dimitrijević view it at their task to tease out, define, and outline these ideas as clearly as possible. In their book, they focus on concepts of the “Other Line” and the “Yugoslav Art Space.” There are also other themes that run through Denegri’s work, but these two highlight with great precision his formidable contribution of defining, theorizing, and presenting the artistic practices that went beyond those localisms and—worse—atavisms that ultimately led to the demise of Yugoslavia.
This book offers rare firsthand insights into the uniqueness of the artistic culture of socialist Yugoslavia and, in so doing, presents an important correction to the leveling of “East Art” in post-Cold War art criticism and curatorship in the West. It is both an introduction to and a masterclass in Yugoslav art of the second half of the 20th century. The conversations here illuminate a complex weaving between artists, their material practices, ideas, institutional forces, and their social and political contexts in ways that other forms of presentation (survey, case study, catalogue) simply cannot. Denegri is not just a witness and participant, but also a highly perceptive art historian adept in discerning these phenomena. And his interviewers are not naïve listeners and admirers, a pair of impressionable Eckermanns to Denegri’s Goethe—nor does Denegri strike the pose of an all-knowing “great.” Dimitrijević and Vesić are highly accomplished art historians and curators who are active protagonists of the post-Yugoslav art space. While they share Denegri’s interests, their experiences could not be more different—and this is what charges these conversations in a unique way. One often has the impression of witnessing an exchange that is taking place at the precipice of Yugoslavia’s catastrophe: on one side of the conversation is an art critic and historian who benefited from the best years of that state project and helped actively in defining its modern art, while the other side is occupied by two art critics and historians who came of age professionally during its disintegration and are trying vigorously to both assess and preserve its legacy. They cannot be impartial listeners and curious seekers. Nor do they hesitate to challenge their interlocutor, and they also offer their own interpretations of the artistic phenomena under discussion—including his own work. That often lends these interviews a dramatic tone, making for a suspenseful and exciting read. These conversations, meta-critical by virtue of their very setup, thus occasionally also touch on the idea of “criticism in action”—and what we have here is indeed not a rumination on that critical ideal, but an effective demonstration of what it can be.
Branislav Jakovljević
Branislav Jakovljević is Sara Hart Kimball Professor of the Humanities, and he teaches in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, Stanford University. He is the author of Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia 1945-1991 (2016), which was the winner of Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama or Theater for 2016-17 and the co-recipient of Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Outstanding Book Award for 2017. He publishes widely on subjects ranging from performance art, to conceptual art, to avant-garde, to performance and politics.
Publication: https://www.kontakt-collection.org/bibliography/74/the-yugoslav-art-space-jesa-denegri-in-the-first-person?ctx=3f20038bf99621d4a09267bb568da3c691710daf&idx=0
November 2024
As Ješa Denegri’s interviewers observed at one point during their conversations, he would usually begin his articles with this kind of preamble. The clumsy imitation of his inimitable style above paraphrases the assertion about art criticism made by one of his two acknowledged intellectual role models, the Italian art historian and critic Giulio Carlo Argan (the other being Miodrag Protić, the founding director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade). Denegri’s is certainly the most distinct voice amongst that generation of art critics who argued for and gave legitimacy to what came to be called “new art practices” in Yugoslavia. The present book makes this voice accessible to an international audience through a series of detailed interviews that the art historians and critics Jelena Vesić and Branislav Dimitrijević conducted with him from 2016 to 2019. While Denegri has been present in Yugoslav art criticism over the past six decades, these conversations focus on the 1960s and 1970s—the period that turned out to be the most dynamic in the history of the arts in socialist Yugoslavia. This comprehensive exploration of his work demonstrates his significance beyond Yugoslavia’s borders. Denegri (b. 1936) belongs to the generation of art critics, curators, and historians born just before the Second World War who played a crucial role in the transformation of art that took place during the 20th century’s second half. He shares this distinction with Harald Szeemann (b. 1933), Lucy Lippard (b. 1937), Achile Bonito Oliva (b. 1939), Seth Siegelaub (b. 1941), and Rosalind Kraus (b. 1941), to name just a few. But if he is the only figure from Eastern Europe who fits comfortably in such company, then it is not because he practiced his criticism and curatorship in the same way as did his Western peers.
What sets Denegri apart is the mode of writing that he developed over the decades. He is the master of short form, a Chekhov of art critics. While he did publish several monographs on artists and artists’ groups, his preferred critical medium is that of the short text—which he perfected. (Dimitrijević and Vesić made a judicious selection of his articles; these are interspersed between the interviews.) There is no significant Yugoslav or international artist, art movement, new medium, publication, or exhibition about which he did not write. Over the decades, hundreds of his articles were published in periodicals across Yugoslavia. That speaks not only to the breadth of Denegri’s interests and his sheer intellectual curiosity, but also to the highly developed magazine and journal culture that existed in the country. His lack of interest in grand theories of art, periods, and styles suggests that he is, at his core, a non-systemic thinker, drawn to artists who are similarly non-systemic in their work. This does not, however, entail the absence of any important overarching ideas that would hold together the vast mosaic of texts that he produced over the decades—and Vesić and Dimitrijević view it at their task to tease out, define, and outline these ideas as clearly as possible. In their book, they focus on concepts of the “Other Line” and the “Yugoslav Art Space.” There are also other themes that run through Denegri’s work, but these two highlight with great precision his formidable contribution of defining, theorizing, and presenting the artistic practices that went beyond those localisms and—worse—atavisms that ultimately led to the demise of Yugoslavia.
This book offers rare firsthand insights into the uniqueness of the artistic culture of socialist Yugoslavia and, in so doing, presents an important correction to the leveling of “East Art” in post-Cold War art criticism and curatorship in the West. It is both an introduction to and a masterclass in Yugoslav art of the second half of the 20th century. The conversations here illuminate a complex weaving between artists, their material practices, ideas, institutional forces, and their social and political contexts in ways that other forms of presentation (survey, case study, catalogue) simply cannot. Denegri is not just a witness and participant, but also a highly perceptive art historian adept in discerning these phenomena. And his interviewers are not naïve listeners and admirers, a pair of impressionable Eckermanns to Denegri’s Goethe—nor does Denegri strike the pose of an all-knowing “great.” Dimitrijević and Vesić are highly accomplished art historians and curators who are active protagonists of the post-Yugoslav art space. While they share Denegri’s interests, their experiences could not be more different—and this is what charges these conversations in a unique way. One often has the impression of witnessing an exchange that is taking place at the precipice of Yugoslavia’s catastrophe: on one side of the conversation is an art critic and historian who benefited from the best years of that state project and helped actively in defining its modern art, while the other side is occupied by two art critics and historians who came of age professionally during its disintegration and are trying vigorously to both assess and preserve its legacy. They cannot be impartial listeners and curious seekers. Nor do they hesitate to challenge their interlocutor, and they also offer their own interpretations of the artistic phenomena under discussion—including his own work. That often lends these interviews a dramatic tone, making for a suspenseful and exciting read. These conversations, meta-critical by virtue of their very setup, thus occasionally also touch on the idea of “criticism in action”—and what we have here is indeed not a rumination on that critical ideal, but an effective demonstration of what it can be.
Branislav Jakovljević
Branislav Jakovljević is Sara Hart Kimball Professor of the Humanities, and he teaches in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, Stanford University. He is the author of Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia 1945-1991 (2016), which was the winner of Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama or Theater for 2016-17 and the co-recipient of Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Outstanding Book Award for 2017. He publishes widely on subjects ranging from performance art, to conceptual art, to avant-garde, to performance and politics.
Publication: https://www.kontakt-collection.org/bibliography/74/the-yugoslav-art-space-jesa-denegri-in-the-first-person?ctx=3f20038bf99621d4a09267bb568da3c691710daf&idx=0
November 2024