Anyone who set off for the country from Belgrade this summer to see the Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists in Vrsac, close to the Romanian border, will have found a work there that illustrates the present political, social and cultural situation in the capital. Biljana Bodiroga and Slavica Danic document the biggest »open market« in Yugoslavia, »Aerodrom Pancevo«. This town is connected with the city of Belgrade by the only underground in the country, Beovoz, at whose other terminal is situated, and not by chance, the large informal market at (apartment) block 70 in Novo Beograd (New Belgrade).

These two places of informal trade, connected by the underground, seem to be more important for the city of Belgrade than the international airport. This is a hypothesis supported by Bodiroga and Danic’s research, which shows that you can get to »Aerodrom Pancevo« by bus from anywhere in the country more easily than to the international airport.2
Belgrade is a large city. These days, if you go along the Knez Mihailova, the best-known shopping street in this city of 1.5 million inhabitants, you will find the same articles as in any largish city. The Goethe Institute, the Institut Français and the British Council have also re-established themselves in the inner city as permanent fixtures. There is nothing to remind you of the 1999 riots during the NATO air raids on Belgrade, when these institutes from NATO countries were attacked by protesters.
Belgrade is a city of international repute and interested in closer international ties. As far back as 2001, Branislav Dimitrijevic, the director of the »School of History and Theory of Images«4, put it this way: »Radical internationalization is an urgent task for the entire society. This is the only way to prevent a restoration of the >ancien regime<.«5 This assessment has not changed in any way since then. Katarina Zivanovic, the director of the cultural centre Rex6, when asked about the murder of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic (Democratic Opposition of Serbia) in 2003, explained how, during the ensuing national emergency, the public was very much afraid that nationalistic forces could overthrow the process of democratization. During the investigations, special army units turned against the government and blocked the motorway connecting Belgrade with Budapest. The country escaped civil war by a hair’s breadth. In the West, these conflicts went largely unnoticed, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were taking almost all the attention.
This shift in international political attention is part of the problem that is increasingly affecting Belgrade’s cultural initiatives. Important measures of support for cultural activities in the region such as those generated by the »Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe«7 are drying up. They are being replaced by programmes devoted to religions, particularly Islam. The main thrust of the »EU eastern enlargement« also passes over Belgrade and concentrates on neighbouring countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Even »relations«8, a project run by the Federal Cultural Foundation (Germany) as part of its programme for central and eastern Europe, will probably leave Belgrade empty-handed in 2004.
This is despite the fact that various institutions such as Rex or the gallery O3one (Ozone), which is in the process of being founded, are particularly endeavouring in their programmes to build up international contacts and collaborations.9 This summer, the Student Cultural Center (SKC)10 brought an international connection of this type to the inner city of Belgrade. The final event of the »People’s Global Action« network11, which gathered for a week in a Belgrade suburb, took place in the gallery and, for several moving minutes, stopped all traffic on the adjacent main street between the Hotel Slavija and Parliament House.
In addition to these bids to establish international ties, there are also growing efforts to carry out internal reforms. The objective that connected many heterogeneous groups, the overthrow of Milosevic, is now past history. Consequently, the extra- parliamentary protest movement Otpor became a parliamentary party of the same name12, as well as a »consultancy« for resistance movements13, which recently went into action successfully in Georgia.14
In the cultural field, the example of the institution Rex can be used to illustrate this reorientation. Rex was brought into being in the nineties as part of the independent Belgrade radio station B92. It made its name in the local resistance movement with actions and theatre and film programmes and achieved international recognition with its internet projects at the interface of culture, politics and civil society. B92 has now changed from a democratizing radio project into a media company, including commercial TV stations. It is thus subject to financial constraints and is trying to get into the black. In the course of this endeavour, Rex is being separated from B92 and established as an independent institution that has to look after its own financial security.
As well as this formal restructuring, Rex is also trying to redefine its objectives. Its current project for 2004 and 2005, »Plan B«, is aimed at the democratic public sphere under the slogan: »from tactical media to practical media«. A series of events aims to create, or find and support, a critical, democratic domain of public opinion. Here, media are no longer defined as weapons but as aids.
There are many initiatives in Belgrade that still continue in the oppositional tradition. They are normally to be found in side streets or back courtyards. Or, like the gallery and magazine project »Remont«16, on the second floor of a shopping centre. The gallery of the »Belgrade Youth Cultural Centre«17 also has a hidden location; its ground floor has been sub-let as a café for financial reasons. Coming out of back courtyards and seeking public attention is an important step for the team associated with the gallery O30ne, which will open in October. This is why it has rented the former Gallery of Yugoslavian Art, which, with its large glass façade, used to show regime-friendly art from Great Yugoslavia in a traditional manner. The project has received financial and material support from the media industry – thanks to the good contacts held by Nebojsa Babic, the gallery’s initiator, and founder of the Belgrade advertising agency Orange Studio. The Belgrade art historian Milena Grabacic recently began working as curator at this future New Media venue. According to her, it will host an interesting programme – particularly if she manages to thwart the all too Western plans for an espresso bar in the gallery.
Belgrade is a large city in the middle of Europe. Perhaps it is her cultural proximity to the Orient that makes Western Europe uneasy. From the 16th century up into the early 18th century, Belgrade was under Turkish rule. One could think that this was a long time ago, but perhaps the cultural borders still run through Belgrade even today. For example, when asked how she liked New York, Grabacic answered: »It was great. Almost as interesting as Istanbul.«

 

Translated by Timothy Jones

 

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