Of pairs and triangles: an uneasy relationship made tangible in photo-performances from Yugoslavia

Abstract

ABSTRACTPhoto-performances belong to a complex art form situated at the interface of transient, event-based performance and trace-like, materialized photography. They are event-based artworks that are conceived for the photographic medium, carried out in front of it and fixated by it. Along this rough definition, conceptual artists in Socialist Yugoslavia experimented with photo-performance in the 1970s and 80s and got interested in the serial aspect this art form allows. In this paper, I take a closer look at photo-performances by Neša Paripović (Examples of Analytical Sculpture, 1978), Sanja Iveković (Triangle, 1979), Tomislav Gotovac (Integral/Tom, Proposal for a Sexy Magazine, 1978) and Maja Savić and Paja Stanković (Synchronized Movements/Paths, 1979). Though very different, these works – that were all completed almost the same year – display similar formal features and patterns. They are intriguing series of photographs showing performing bodies and staging configurations of the Two. I will try in several steps to disentangle complex issues within the discussed photo-performances around the range of possible modes of authorship, their manifesting fields of power, the staging of the Gaze in them, and, at the level of interpretation, its transgressive potential of queering.