Problems of National Identity and Social Engagement in the Practice of Contemporary Art in the Balkans
Problems of National Identity and Social Engagement in the Practice of Contemporary Art in the Balkans

Summary/Abstract: This paper commences with a paralyzing paradox: it will pursue the conventional mode of categorization of national contexts, but at the same attempt to look at the strategies by which the notion of national identity has been challenged, interrupted or subverted by contemporary art practice in the Balkans. Use of the transversal links on the discursive grounds of the recently enhanced conversation between the scenes, the heterogeneities between the generations within the countries, and the differences between cities of the same country will be employed here strategically as a device to sidestep the reproduction of myths behind national organisms. Within a relatively short space of time three major exhibitions of contemporary art in the Balkan geographical area were organized in three cites in the two German speaking countries, Austria and Germany. Apart from bringing together examples of recent art, these events set out to portray Balkan culture as a whole, whether meant ironically or not. The titles of these representational framings provide a strong clue to the external perspective of the three best-known paternal figures of European curatorship: In Search for Balkania (Peter Weibel with the collaboration of Eda Cufer and Roger Conover in Graz), Blood and Honey, Future’s in the Balkans (Harald Szeeman in Vienna) and In the Gorges of the Balkans, a Report (Rene Block in Kassel).

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