Review article
https://doi.org/10.32728/flux.2024.6.3
Crises and Reforms of the Body: the Cult of Personality Fragments in Service of Reflection on Social Change
Milena Jokanović
orcid.org/0000-0002-6232-9632
; University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The use of the body – whether it referred to representations of the leader through media or artistic image, sculpture, photography, or specific choreographed manifestations – is a recognizable tool for building and nurturing the personality cult of Josip Broz Tito and communicating with the People. The crisis of the socialist society and the ideological shift was therefore accompanied by sudden changes, neglect, even literal cutting and melting of the monumental heritage, removal, and destruction of Tito's representations, and the forced oblivion of collective performances that once celebrated Yugoslavia and its leader. In this paper, the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and its surroundings will serve as the point of departure for further reflection on the creation of a personality cult, as well as its subsequent deconstruction and recontextualization followed by the notion of the body's bond to this space. Starting from the appearance of the literal and the symbolical body of the leader, as well as the collective body in the context of the 25th of May performance and commemoration happening in the same area, we will follow how these bodies transform over time at the same place through the medium of contemporary art and curatorial practice.
Keywords
body; cult; crisis; contemporary art practice; socialist heritage; monument; performance; Tito; Yugoslavia
Hrčak ID:
325027
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2024.
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