Bojana Pejić, When Private was not Political, lecture, 2009. re.act.feminism - performance art of the 1960s and 70s today, Conference and Live Performances, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Bojana Pejić
When Private was not Political: Making Sex in State-Socialism

Bojana Pejić is an art historian and curator, born in Belgrade (Yugoslavia, now Serbia) and based in Berlin since 1991. She studied History of Art in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, and in 2005 obtained her PhD at the Karl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg (Germany). 1977-1991, she was curator at the Student Cultural Centre of Belgrade University, and from 1984-1991, she was editor of the art theory journal Moment. Pejić was chief curator of remarkable exhibitions, including “After the Wall – Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe”, (Moderna Museet Stockholm, 1999, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art Budapest, 2000, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2000-2001), “Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe” (MUMOK, Vienna; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2009-2010), “Good Girls – Memory, Desire, Power, at the Museum of Contemporary Art” (MNAC, Bucharest, 2013) or “HERO MOTHER” (Berlin, 2016). Between 2018-2021, she was a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at New Europe College (NEC) in Bucharest.

This lecture deals with four works produced during the Communist period in Yugoslavia and Poland and which all deal with active female sexuality. The first to be discussed is a short film by the Yugoslav director Dusan Makavejev, followed by a performance by Polish artist Natalia LL, a performance by Sanja Iveković and finally one by Marina Abramović. All of these works can be read as a form of resistance to the domineering Socialist patriarchy and are recognized today as examples of "latent feminism" (Zora Rusnikova)

Format
Audio Document

Document media
Lecture

Issue date
2009

To be seen in
re.act.feminism - performance art of the 1960s and 70s today, Conference and Live Performances, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 23.1.2009 / 3 pm