On The Very Edge

Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918–1941)

Edited by Jelena Bogdanovic, Lilien Filipovitch Robinson, and Igor Marjanovic

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Edited volume - paperback

Revealing a vibrant and intertwined artistic scene in the Balkans
On the Very Edge brings together fourteen empirical and comparative essays about the production, perception, and reception of modernity and modernism in the visual arts, architecture, and literature of interwar Serbia (1918–1941). The contributions highlight some idiosyncratic features of modernist processes in this complex period in Serbian arts and society, which emerged ‘on the very edge’ between territorial and cultural, new and old, modern and traditional identities.

With an open methodological framework this book reveals a vibrant and intertwined artistic scene, which, albeit prematurely, announced interests in pluralism and globalism. On the Very Edge addresses issues of artistic identities and cultural geographies and aims to enrich contextualized studies of modernism and its variants in the Balkans and Europe, while simultaneously re-mapping and adjusting the prevailing historical canon.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Contributors
Jelena Bogdanović (Iowa State University), Lilien Filipovitch Robinson (George Washington University), Igor Marjanović (Washington University in St. Louis), Miloš R. Perović (University of Belgrade), Jasna Jovanov (The Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection and University EDUCONS, Novi Sad), Svetlana Tomić (Alfa University, Belgrade), Ljubomir Milanović (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Bojana Popović (Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade), Anna Novakov (Saint Mary’s College of California), Aleksandar Kadijević (University of Belgrade), Tadija Stefanović (University of Belgrade), Dragana Ćorović (University of Belgrade), Viktorija Kamilić (independent scholar), Marina Djurdjević (Museum of Science and Technology, Belgrade), Nebojša Stanković (Princeton University), Dejan Zec (Institute for Recent History of Serbia)




Acknowledgments IX
Introduction
ON THE VERY EDGE: MODERNISMS AND MODERNITY OF INTERWAR SERBIA
Jelena Bogdanović

Chapter 1
FROM TRADITION TO MODERNISM: UROŠ PREDIĆ AND PAJA JOVANOVIĆ
Lilien Filipovitch Robinson

Chapter 2
ZENIT: PERIPATETIC DISCOURSES OF LJUBOMIR MICIĆ AND BRANKO VE POLJANSKI
Igor Marjanović

Chapter 3
ZENITISM AND MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE
Miloš R. Perović
 
Chapter 4
THE “OBLIK” ART GROUP, 1926-1939
Jasna Jovanov
 
Chapter 5
THE TRAVEL WRITINGS OF JELENA J. DIMITRIJEVIĆ: FEMINIST POLITICS AND PRIVILEGED INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY
Svetlana Tomić
 
Chapter 6
COVER GIRL: ENVISIONING THE VEIL IN THE WORK OF MILENA PAVLOVIĆ-BARILLI
Ljubomir Milanović

Chapter 7
WOMEN AND APPLIED ARTS IN BELGRADE, 1918-1941
Bojana Popović

Chapter 8
EDUCATING GIRLS: WOMEN ARCHITECTS AND THE DESIGN OF THREE SCHOOLS IN BELGRADE, 1908-1938
Anna Novakov

Chapter 9
EXPRESSIONISM AND SERBIAN ARCHITECTURE BETWEEN TWO WORLD WARS
Aleksandar Kadijević and Tadija Stefanović

Chapter 10
THE GARDEN CITY CONCEPT IN THE URBAN DISCOURSE OF INTERWAR BELGRADE
Dragana Ćorović

Chapter 11
THE PROFESSORS’ COLONY – A SUBURBAN HOUSING PROJECT AS AN EXAMPLE OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN 1920s BELGRADE
Viktorija Kamilić
 
Chapter 12
ARCHITECT BROTHERS PETAR AND BRANKO KRSTIĆ
Marina Djurdjević

Chapter 13
NIŠKA BANJA: MODERN ARCHITECTURE FOR A MODERN SPA
Nebojša Stanković

Chapter 14
MONEY, POLITICS, AND SPORTS: STADIUM ARCHITECTURE IN INTERWAR SERBIA
Dejan N. Zec

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Illustration Credits
Index

Format: Edited volume - paperback

Size: 230 × 170 mm

ISBN: 9789058679932

Publication: September 01, 2014

Languages: English

Stock item number: 91668

Igor Marjanović is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.
Jelena Bogdanović is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History at Iowa State University.

Lilien Filipovitch Robinson is Professor of Art History at the George Washington University.


Book review by Dr. Zlata Vuksanovic Macura for the journal Nasledje [Heritage] published by the Institute for the protection of cultural heritage of the city of Belgrade.
Zlata Vuksanovic Macura, Nasledje 17 (2016) 217-220.


 
On the Very Edge: Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918-;1941) deserves to be credited for bringing the subject of Serbian modernism in literature, the arts and architecture to a broader readership, particularly English-reading scholars interested in South East European art and culture of the twentieth century. Although the quality of the published essays is strikingly uneven, most of them nevertheless contribute to the driving idea of the volume, which is to explore a variety of modalities of Serbian modernism and to show different perspectives on them.
Aleksandar Ignjatović, Southeastern Europe 40 (2016) 105-120

 

This edited collection, which presents the work of scholars based both in Serbia and in the United States, tackles two major tasks. The first is documenting modernizing forces and modernisms in Serbia between the two world wars. The second is exploring the significance of Serbian modernism(s) both to Serbia and to the broader history of modernist movements. [...] Scholars of modernization and modernism, as well as scholars interested in Yugoslav history, will find this collection valuable and thought-provoking.
Brigitte Le Normand, Slavic Review vol.74/no.4 (2015): 927-929


 
Written in functional language with many references regarding further readings, On the Very Edge: Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918-;1941), will find readership among architectural historians, architects, urban planners, designers, critics, and others motivated for insight into Serbia between two World Wars. This book will be valuable resource and serve as point of departure, not only to the study of interwar Serbian arts, architecture and literature, but to the continuing venture of exploring the history of European modernism(s) in a broader cultural context.
Aleksandra Ilijevski, Zbornik Matice Srpske za Likovne Umetnosti 43 [Matica Srpska Journal for Fine Arts 43] (2015): 366-369

 

The authors and editors of the book manage to put together an imaginative and inspiring patchwork of accounts and analyses centred on the female presence in the artistic and intellectual life of interwar Serbian society. It had to be a scarce presence; therefore the editorial project proves to be as ingenious as it is effective: it achieves the suggestive and comprehensive evocation of those times by referring it to a particularly emphatic phenomenon.
A special flavour of the reading of this book comes from its “vernacular English”. Surely, the language is mastered flawlessly and carries all the nuances and expressivity required when dealing with such complex matters. Nevertheless, there is a slight air of foreignness about it, which suits quite well the purpose and core of the very enterprise: an endeavour to establish the situation of Serbian Modernism in arts and architecture within the wider scenery of European and universal modernity.

Kázmér Kovács, Associate Professor, PhD, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Studies in History & Theory of Architecture, sITA 2014