The Truth is in the Eyes of the Beholder: Anatomy of Yugoslav Performance

The article reviews the Public Body exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, which presented four key video performances from the 1970s by Nesa Paripovic, Zoran Popovic, Rasa Todosijevic, and Marina Abramovic. At the core of the analysis is the phenomenon of the “New Art Practice” in socialist Yugoslavia, developed at the intersection of freedom and control, the personal and the collective. The author examines the characteristics of Eastern European performance art, marked by an aesthetic of survival, minimal means, corporeality, and sharp social metaphors. Through detailed discussion of individual works, the text reveals both contrasts and resonances in artistic strategies: engagement with urban space (Paripovic), the exploration of personal boundaries (Todosijevic), the collectivization of memory (Abramovic), and the use of the body as a tool of form-making (Popovic). The exhibition is seen as a retrospective that not only reconstructs the historical context but also underscores the continuing relevance of the vulnerable, regulated body in today’s era of surveillance and control.