Short history of performance art as a history of resistance ▪︎ A lecture by Ana Simona Zelenović

TUESDAY 7/10
18:00 – 19:30
Cultural Center of Belgrade, Artget Gallery
In English

This lecture examines the genealogy of performance art in Serbia from its emergence in the late 1960s to contemporary practices, with particular attention to the Belgrade art scene. It situates performance within the socio-political and cultural framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, foregrounding the role of cultural policy, geopolitics, and institutional conditions in shaping new artistic practices. The lecture underscores the significance of Student Cultural Centers and other alternative spaces as experimental platforms that enabled the articulation of neo-avant-garde strategies and critical artistic discourses. It further addresses the transformations of performance art during the 1990s and 2000s, when political crisis, nationalism, and social disintegration fostered practices of resistance, activism, and embodied critique. By juxtaposing these trajectories with European and Anglo-American developments, the lecture maps specificities of the Serbian context and traces the enduring legacy of performance art in informing contemporary artistic production.

Ana Simona Zelenović (1993) is an art historian, curator, and psychotherapist based in Belgrade. A doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Belgrade, her research focuses on feminist performance art in Yugoslavia and Serbia. She was art director of Galerija Novembar (2021–24) and curated Montenegro’s Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale. She co-founded SELFI Magazine, writes for Numéro and Fräulein, and is a member of the Global Fund for Women’s Artist Changemaker Council.