Page 12 - Studio International - February 1974

The situation of the An artist in Yugoslavia can paint what he likes Ivan Picelj CM-8-J 1964-66
in any manner he likes. He may even be hostile Galerija Suvremene Umjetnosti, Zagreb
artist in Yugoslavia to the regime and get away with it. I know of no also France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg,
since 1945 paintings hostile to the regime, though there are West Germany and Italy. The Russians entered
lots of cartoons, and no one seems to suffer. Belgrade briefly and quickly departed. In 1945
Even young people who wrote regime-knocking the state owed alliance neither to the East or the
It may seem an obvious question to ask how the poems were eventually bailed out by their
West. However, once the communist regime
situation of the artist in Yugoslavia compares parents. Most artists seemed to have more was set up it was decidedly of the Russian type.
with that of the artist in Poland, East Germany, interesting things to do; however, no artist that
Hungary or Rumania. After all, they are all I heard of had been victimized because of his All the usual and 'correct' statements about
socialist realism and art in the service of the
eastern European socialist republics. However, work. revolution and of the people were duly uttered.
this question is about as meaningful as asking How did this situation, so different from that But not all artists conformed.
how the situation of the artist in France or Italy which obtains in the Union of Socialist Soviet Before the war Yugoslavia had one
compares with that of his counterpart in Poland, Republics and other eastern socialist republics, important point of contact with the development
East Germany, Hungary or Rumania. The come about ? of modern art in western Europe: Belgrade,
situation of the Yugoslavian artist bears little Firstly, unlike most other eastern European next after Paris, was a centre of the surrealist
resemblance to that of artists in other eastern countries, Yugoslavia liberated itself from the movement. After the war, artists in Belgrade
European socialist republics. In fact, with the Germans. Indeed, this distinguished it not only continued to paint surrealist pictures with
exception of one feature by which some artists from Poland (but here there were exceptional impunity. This may have been because they
set great store, there is little difference between circumstances), East Germany, Czechoslovakia, were relatively few in number or because they
the situation there and in western Europe. Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Albania, but they were continuing an established tradition or