The Museum of Modern Art in Skopje and the Potentiality of an Exhibition Space (original) (raw)
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Popular Demand: Yugoslav Socialist Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art
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In 1976, black feminist poet and theorist Audre Lorde published “Notes from a Trip to Russia,” in which she marveled at the apparent harmony among diverse ethnicities in the Soviet Union. “And it’s not that there are no individuals who are nationalists, or racists,” she wrote, “but that the taking of a state position against nationalism, against racism is what makes it possible for a society like this to function.” The extraordinarily rigorous and thought-provoking exhibition of Yugoslav architecture, on view at New York’s Museum of Modern Art through January 13, similarly positions socialism as the political foundation for a multinational and anti-nationalist society. Co-curated by Martino Stierli and Vladimir Kulić, “Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980” argues that social programs, collectivism, internationalism, and the freedom to experiment shaped the development of architecture in Yugoslavia, and that its distinctive socialist modernism was founded on the project of building a more just and diverse society. A tour de force display of more than four hundred photographs, architectural models, maps, graphs, videos, and installations, “Toward a Concrete Utopia” dazzles its viewers with seductive narratives of anti-fascism embodied in hybrid buildings that amalgamate influences of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires as well as various Western modernisms in the service of Yugoslavia’s socialist revolution.
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Since the 1990s and the beginning of the (still ongoing nowadays) debate about the establishment of an official narrative of the socialist past, the socialist period’s museum representation in Bulgaria has beеn a topic of tensions and heated discussions. A historical museum exhibition implies a professional reconsideration and systematization of a period of forty-five years and constitution of new or reconfiguration of old collections, but mainly it demands institutional courage to propose a narrative that could potentially find itself in conflict with current political discourses pertaining to the recent past. As a consequence of its absence, the task of a representation of Bulgarian socialism has been assumed by the art museum institutions at national and local level. Through an approach that covers broadly the 34 years after November 1989, we propose an analysis of the social and cultural impact of the temporary exhibitions that have attempted a narrative of the socialist period through its art production. Of particular interest to us are those exhibitions that deal with questions relating to the different memories of socialism that coexist in Bulgarian society: freedom of expression versus repression; nuanced periodization versus homogenization of the socialist experience; coexistence of everyday life and ideology.
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Under the headline ‚Skopje 2014' the city center of Macedonia's capital is currently undergoing a largescale, government-sponsored transformation. This apparently political undertaking features numerous monuments depicting historical figures, who are claimed by various nation-states in the Balkans, and a variety of public buildings, whose anachronistic architectural style borrows heavily from long-gone eras. Buildings from the Yugoslav past are being concealed or blocked from view. This paper aims to go beyond interrogations that are merely centered on the intransparent decisionmaking processes and the disputable allocation of public funds for a project that ultimately musealizes the city. While such critiques are justified, especially in the light of Macedonia's current economic conditions and its intent to enter the Europen Union, I will argue that ‚Skopje 2014' tries to construct a specific narrative of Macedonian identity by weaving a continuity -from antiquity over the middle ages to the times of Macedonia's struggle for nationhood -into the fabric of Skopje's built environment. The transformation is not only characterized by the new structures and their questionable aesthetics, but also by strategically patterned silences and omissions, such as Macedonia's Yugoslav past and the presence of religious and ethnic minorities such as Albanian, Turkish or Roma, and their cultural and political manifestations. While the construction works are progressing steadily, the government keeps avoiding any public debate about the goal and the nationalist tone of the project. Resistance by the opposition and civil society actors (scholars, architects, NGOs etc.) is growing but remains fragmented between questions of economic and aesthetic rationales, claims of corruption and minority-nationalist sentiments.
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This book presents an elaboration of selected materials from the author’s doctoral thesis, Dissonant Memories in the Post-Soviet Space: Newly Established Museums and Political History in Russia (1991–2016), supervised by professor Luca Basso Peressut and co-supervised by professor Francesca Lanz. The thesis was successfully defended on June 30, 2020, at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano.