AMAZONKA, PARTIZANKA, UTVARA
U nanosima istorije
"I mi se možemo ponositi što smo u ove teške, ali i velike dane dali svijetu nov tip žene – partizanku", pisao je Vladimir Nazor u tekstu koji je naslovio „Od Amazonke do partizanke“, i objavio u broju sedam časopisa ’Žena u borbi’, 1944. godine, dok je vršio funkciju predsednika Zemaljskog antifašističkog vijeća narodnog oslobođenja Hrvatske. U poetskoj viziji mu se neka mlada partizanka ukazala kao Pentezileja, ćerka boga rata Aresa. U liku partizanke "uskrsnuo je lik davne Amazonke, ali ljepši i viši, jer partizanka ne radi samo snagom svojih mišića, nego i svojim kroz vjekove od svih žena stečenim novim znanjem, obogaćenim umom, produhovljenim bivstvom". Uspostavljanjem takvog tipa žene kao uzornog za nove generacije, po Nazoru, "žensko pitanje za nas je riješeno.“ (Nazor 1944: 17) List ’Žena u borbi’, u kome je taj tekst izašao, bio je list Antifašističke fronte žena u Hrvatskoj, i nakon 17 ratnih brojeva nastavio je da izlazi, čak i nakon raspuštanja AFŽ-a 1953, da bi 1958. bio preimenovan u ’Žena’. Sve to vreme je bio mesto sa koga se projektovao uzorni lik savremene žene, a te projekcije su se u toj meri vremenom udaljille od Nazorovog lika partizanke, da bi u jednom trenutku postalo izvesno da žena kao borkinja već odavno spada u kategoriju utvarnih pojava, potpuno istisnutih iz polja javne predstave, osim za vreme ritualizovanih proslava godišnjica nekih slavnih bitki. U ulozi utvare, borkinja pripada ujedno vremenu prošlom, kada je imala vodeću ulogu u građenju novog društva, i nekom pretećem vremenu budućem, "kada će 'Crvena', kada će žena ponovo dreknuti: Juriš!“ Inače, njen izgon u vreme prošlo počeo je još samim krajem rata, njenim histeriziranjem, to jest patologiziranjem njenih borbenih instinkata. Hugo Klajn je u studiji „Ratna neuroza Jugoslovena“ pružio kliničku sliku te neuroze, koja se „prevashodno ispoljava u obliku dramatizacije ’borbenog napada’, juriša“, koje civilno stanovništvo zove ’partizanskom bolešću, „a u nekim krajevima obolele su prozvali ,Jurušantima’". (Klajn 1995: 59)
Drugi talas feminizma je pokušao da to promeni, i da elemente nasleđa borkinja oživi u realnom iskustvu svakidašnjice, koja se u međuvremenu retradicionalizovala. U članku objavljenom 1980. u broju 4/5 časopisa ’Žena’, Žarana Papić je izjavu Slavena Letice da je "žensko pitanje u nas klasno prevaziđeno pitanje i da je (zajedno sa nacionalnim pitanjem) autentično rešeno", pobijala nizom veoma jasno definisanih činjenica. Navela je da „i dalje vladaju zdravorazumska načela 'normalnosti' odnosa među polovima, te žena ostaje pasivna, društveno neangažovana, ophrvana kućom i ostalim 'normalnim' ženskim zahtevima i poslovima“, a da "devojčice odgajamo da budu ženstvene, tj. da znaju gde im je mesto i da ne traže previše, a dečake odgajamo da postanu aktivne, preduzimljive 'glave' porodice". (Papić 1980: 75) Pritom je u to vreme školska lektira još obilovala primerima iz NOB-a, koji su ipak uključivali i žene borkinje i revolucionarke koje nisu pristajale na to da „znaju gde im je mesto“, i koje su u borbu za to neko pravičnije sutra krenule bez bojazni da će time napraviti neki društveni prestup. Trebalo je samo pokazati da ta borba nije završena, i da je potraga za njihovim naslednicama još u toku.
"Svaki otpor predstavlja raskid sa postojećim stanjem“, pisao je Alen Badju, naglašavajući da „za onog ko se u to upušta, svaki otpor počinje nekim raskidom sa samim sobom“. (Badiou 1998: 16) Borkinje koje su delovale unutar AFŽ-a i NOV i POJ te raskide su obavile samim pristupanjem jedinicama u okviru kojih su se borile. One su, pritom, u revoluciji „našle nešto što je važnije od lične sudbine“ (Kovačević 1977: 39). S druge strane, „muškarci su mogli ratovati i postajati heroji bez potrebe da promijene odnose prema ženi“, dok „žena nije mogla stupiti u borbene redove bez borbe sa konzervativizmom porodice i nasljeđem proslosti“, te se zato „u revoluciji .nije radilo samo o tome da se žena izvuče iz zaostalosti i da se promijeni njena svijest, nego je bila potrebna izmjena svijesti čitavog društva“ (Isto). Pa ipak, "socijalistička revolucija nije uvek bila u stanju da prekorači prag porodice“. (Morokvasić 1986: 127). Iako su se ideolozi revolucije stalno pozivali na teze klasika marksizma, kao da su stalno previđali, ili su makar nedovoljno ozbiljno uzimali Engelsove stavove iz ’Porekla porodice, privatne svojine i države’, u kojima je tvrdio da „prva klasna suprotnost koja se javlja u istoriji poklapa se sa antagonizmom muža i žene u monogamiji, a prvo klasno ugnjetavanje – s ugnjetavanjem ženskog pola od strane muškog.“ (Engels 1950: 217) Stoga se i stavovi koji su se iznosili čak i na konferencijama AFŽ-a početkom pedesetih, o tome da „smo do te mere izgradili socijalizam da žena može da ide natrag u kuću i da vaspitava decu” (Gudac-Dodić, 2006: 64) nisu smatrali automatski kontrarevolucionarnim.
Kuda je to odvelo u razvijenom samoupravljanju vidljivo je iz ankete vršene početkom sedamdesetih godina u Bosni i Hercegovini, na kojoj su na pitanje „zašto žene u samoupravnom odlučivanju nedovoljno učestvuju?“ ispitanice dale ovakve odgovore:
1. Uzrok je narazvijeno samoupravljanje – 7,69%
2. Tradicionalno shvaćanje prema kojem je ženi mjesto u kući, a ne u političkom i samoupravnom životu – 20,17%
3. Nedovoljno razvijena svijest žena – 14,00%
4. Opterećenost žene poslovima u braku i porodici – 51,62%
5. Samoupravljanje i nije „ženski posao“ – 4,78%
6. Nema o tome svoje mišljenje – 1,36%
7. Bez odgovora – 0,85% (Kožul, 1973: 114)
Po ovim rezultatima je „opterećenost žene poslovima u braku i porodici“ bio glavni uzrok njene društveno političke neaktivnosti, tako da je domestifikacija žene u samoupravljanju i njeno pretvaranje u neplaćenu kućnu poslugu, koja je sve poslove održavanja domaćinstva i brige o deci radila pored svog posla, u stvari bilo njeno uklanjanje iz procesa političkog odlučivanja. Pri tome je bitno da su tu rezultati bili striktno razdvojeni, to nije uključivalo žene koje su malo učestvovale u odlučivanju zbog „tradicionalnog shvatanja prema kom je ženi mjesto u kući, a ne u političkom i samoupravnom životu“.
U eksperimentalnom filmu Milice Rakić ’Crvena da te nema trebalo bi te izmisliti’ uvodi se lik heroine, borkinje i aktivistkinje, koja u dve pojave i tri glasa personifikuje lik nove žene, razvijen u borbi, lik od koga već se u periodu kosolidacije vlasti u FNRJ odustalo. Montažom igranih i dokumentarnih scena, uz naraciju iz ofa, gradi se narativ koji narodnooslobodilačku borbu i socijalističku revoluciju revoluciju ne tretira kao nešto što je završeno u davnoj prošlosti, već kao procese koji su ostali nedovršeni, koji su bili prekinuti radi uspostavljanja stabilne vlasti i dosezanja nekog bazičnog životnog standarda, dok su nosioci tih procesa privremeno pacifikovani. Ta privremenost je, međutim, postala relativno trajna, a demobilisana borkinja i revolucionarka je ostala u nekoj vrsti unutrašnjeg izgnanstva, lutajući poput neke utvare ili aveti po vili u kojoj je nekada imala ilegalnu partizansku štampariju, i iz koje je i krenula u borbu. Obuzeta je dijalogom koji se vodi između dva pola njene fizički podvojene pojave, kojim se na momente prolama poneka parola, i koji biva kontrastiran sa veoma suvim i grubim izveštajem o nedostatcima rada AFŽ-a u 1947. godini. Obučena je i našminkana za pokret, ali komande za to nema.
U posednutoj kući
Okvir slike u kojoj se odvijaju svi igrani segmenti filma sveden je na vremenski jasno datiran enterijer privatne vile, čija arhitektura evocira tridesete godine prošlog veka, a elementi nameštaja par narednih decenija, i to i jeste vremenski raspon u kome se radnja odigrava. Naraciju upravo i otvara priča o tom stambenom objektu, u čujem prijemnom salonu posmatrač kao da je sasvim zatočen, jer niti se pruža vizura tog objekta spolja, niti se perspektiva iz koje se enterijer sagledava menja. Vidik posmatrača je ograničen na manje više isti kadar, u kome se samo planovi izmenjuju. U savršenom redu koji vlada u tom prostoru ne vide se tragovi ljudskih aktivnosti. Deluje kao da je vila posednuta utvarama, a ljudske figure koje jedna, pa druga, ulaze u kadar, upravo se tako mogu i sagledati, posebno s obzirom na činjenicu da je druga gotovo identičan dvojnik prve. One ne govore, a njihovi pokreti su koreografisani kao poze. Glasovi koji govore u njihovo ime čuju se iz ofa. Prvi ženski glas izgovara da se u dnevnom listu ’Politika’ pojavila vest da je ta vila na prodaju, ponovo, i to sa popustom, budući da previše podseća na duboko potisnutu prošlost, čije aktiviranje uvek iznova budi stare, klasne i rodne antagonizme. "Veliko je pitanje da li će naći kupca, jer je vlasnica bila revolucionarka, komunistkinja, antifašistkinja, feministkinja, ratnica, udarnica, trudbenica, društveno-politička radnica, ali pre svega žena koja je ostala verna svojim idealima". „Bila?“, zapitaće se možda posmatrač, „a šta je sada?“, i „kada je to ’sada’?“.
Elementi (očigledno sasvim nedovršenog) društveno-političkog rada vlasnice te kuće, koja je nekada u svom podrumu imala i ilegalnu šampariju, potom su prikazani kroz montažu dokumentarnih filmskih snimaka iz doba obnove i izgradnje Federativne Narodne Republike Jugoslavije, preko kojih drugi ženski glas čita segmente arhivske dokumentacije Antifašističkog fronta žena Jugoslavije iz perioda od 1947. do 1949, i to počevši sa izveštajem o nedostatcima rada organizacije u 1947 godini. Ti izveštaji su dosta sirovi i surovi, bez izražene empatije, i prepuni su krajnje osuđujućih zaključaka na račun nekih članica, a posebno nečlanica. To se jasno vidi na primeru osvrta na „kulturno prosvetni nivo žena koje, nešto zbog patrijarhalnog vaspitanja, a nešto zbog zaostalih shvatanja o kulturnom uzdizanju, ne idu u korak sa našom društvenom stvarnošću“. U tim izveštajima oštro se kritikuje „zaostalost i primitivizam“ običnih jugoslovenki, pripadnica radničke klase, koji se ogleda „u načinu odevanja i života u kući, vođenju domaćinstva, vaspitavanju dece, kao i društvenoj i verskoj zatucanosti“, i čak se tvrdi i to da „hodaju prljave i neuredne, kao što su neuredne i njihove stambene prostorije“. To svakako pruža veoma snažan kontrapunkt prethodno prikazanim prizorima visoko stilizovanog životnog okružja i načina odevanja protagonistkinja igranog segmenta priče, koje kao da običan život uopšte ne dotiče. Jedino što na neki način spaja te drugarice radnice i drugarice koje su avangarda radničke klase, i njihove emancipatorke, je drskost. Drugi igrani segment, koji sledi iza dokumentarnog, upravo počinje pričom koju pripoveda muški glas koji pokriva protagonistkinju dva. On se poziva na dnevni list ’Politika’, i izriče skandaloznu vest o osobi koja je „brutalno nasrnula na linoleum jugoslovenske vlade, u svojim lakovnim cipelama sa francuskom štiklom iako je znala da sve društveno-političke radnice moraju da ostave svoje cipele sa visokim potpeticama kod portira i da obuju druge, koje su ponele sa sobom“. U tom drugom igranom segmentu borba protagonistkinje protiv starog poretka, i za utopistički određen novi društveni poredak biva preobražena u insubordinaciju hirjerahizovanoj strukturi koja se uspostavila u periodu nakon revolucije, i postavljanje novog horizonta emancipacije. Tako se osnovni narativ kreće od analepse protagonistkinje koja govori u prvom licu jednine, i kaže: "Ja sam osnivala Antifašistički front žena Jugoslavije", do prolepse kojom ona postulira nužnost novog talasa društvene promene u budućnosti, i izgovara da "sve je bliže dan kada će 'Crvena', kada će žena ponovo dreknuti: Juriš!"...
Između dve smrti AFŽ-a
"Iskoristili ste moju smrt da Antifašistički front žena ugasite", izriče ženski glas broj jedan negde na tri četvrtine filma, obraćajući se muškarcu koji je očigledno bio nosilac najviših državnih i partijskih funkcija. Za tom izjavom sledi rafal lamentirajućih optužbi, u sledu rečenica od kojih svaka počinje negacijom: "Nisi ih sprečio. Niko nije. Ni žene se nisu javno pobunile. Nisu napustile svoje položaje i funkcije kako bi se posvetile porodičnom životu, ali su smatrale da je prosečnoj Jugoslovenki potrebna pomoć, isključivo u toj sferi života". Pošto odgovor sa druge strane ne stiže, taj glas nastavlja da izvodi sve radikalnije teze, sve do zaključka da je to sve u stvari bilo "kolektivno samoubistvo". Tako se smrt osobe kojoj se taj (posthumno odzvanjajući) glas pripisuje dovodi u vezu sa smrću kolektiva kome je pripadala, i postavlja se u period koji istorijski biva identfikovan kao period između dve smrti AFŽ-a.
„Prva smrt AFŽ-a dogodila se već u Jugoslaviji, ne samo njegovim formalnim ‘samoukidanjem’ 1953. godine, nego mnogo ranije, već 1944. godine, kako sugerira Lydija Sklevicky“, zaključila je svojedobno Kjara Bonfilioli, dodajući da „druga smrt dogodila se nakon 1989. godine pod najezdom vala historijskog revizionizma unutar kojeg se ženska historija nanovo mogla ispisati/izbrisati samo ‘izmišljanjem tradicije’“ (Bonfiglioli, C. et al. 2016: 149) Po Lidiji Sklevicki, na koju se Bonfilioli pozivala, faza u kojoj je AFŽ imao autonomiju (naravno, samo relativnu, unutar narodnooslobodilačkog pokreta) trajala je samo godinu dana od osnivanja, koje je bilo šestog decembra 1942. Već godine 1944. na 1945. nju zamenjuje „faza direktne submisije i transmisionog karaktera“ (Sklevicky 1996: 86), što znači da „njezina je organizacijska struktura integrirana u hijerarhijsku mrežu Narodnooslobodilačkih odbora (NOO)“. U tom procesu se „iz AFŽ-a gotovo potpuno izgubila interesna dimenzija (specifični emancipatorski sadržaji) koja je postala tek neznatnim djelićem u mozaiku globalne revolucionarne promjene“. (Isto: 87) Sve do 1989, kada je počelo sistematsko uklanjanje AFŽ-a iz kolektivnog sećanja, ta organizacija je imala potpuno avetinjsko prisustvo, opominjući stalno na to da „njenu disoluciju treba posmatrati kao neuspjeh Jugoslavije da uspostavi socijalistički-komunistički društveni poredak, unatoč proklamiranju socijalizma kao vladajuće i noseće ideje društva“. (Bonfiglioli, C. et al. 2016: 149)
Ženski glas broj jedan u filmu to kontesktualizuje tvrdnjom da već neposredno nakon rata "politička i partijska elita bila je demokratski perverzna“, to jest bila je „pravo muško društvo, za koga su žene i dalje bile potčinjene supruge, dobre majke, lebdeća bića uvijena u kozmetiku". Po rečima Gordane Stojaković to muško društvo se lako uspostavilo kao dominantno jer već „početkom pedesetih godina otupela je oštrina ’razračunavanja’ sa patrijarhalnim shvatanjima“, a „do tada podržavani ulazak žena u privredu zamenjen je angažovanjem u društvenom životu pod kojim se uglavnom podrazumevala briga o deci, dobrovoljni rad i ’kulturno uzdizanje žena’“ (Stojaković 2013: 69) Pa ipak, mnoge političke bitke su do tada već bile izvojevane, te su žene Jugoslavije već učestvovale i na izborima za Ustavotvornu skupštinu 1945. godine, koja će doneti i novi Ustav 1946. godine, i u njemu postulirati ravnopravnost žena sa muškarcima i to „u svim oblastima državnog, privrednog i društveno-političkog života“ (Ustav FNRJ, 1946. godina, član 24). To je, naravno, bila formalno-pravna vrsta ravnopravnosti, koja je samo pružala mogućnost za njihovo uključivanje u sve sfere društvenog dogovora i zajedničkog odlučivanja o smeru u kome će se novo jugoslovensko društvo razvijati. U praksi je ipak sve bilo znatno drugačije, te još čim se rat primakao kraju krenule su debate o tome da li „žena van/bez svog doma, s puškom, za govornicom: da li je to bila žena van svog mjesta?“ Odgovor na to pitanje tada još nije fiksiran, ostavljen je za „vrijeme kada utihne oružje, kada se razgrnu ruševine i sagradi novi dom. " (Sklevicky 1996: 55)
A kad je oružje utihnulo AFŽ nije odmah ukinut, već je uveden u proces podređivanja Narodnom Frontu. Tek 1953, na četvrtom Kongresu AFŽ-a je Milovan Đilas, član Politbiroa CK KPJ, pročitao govor u kome je bilo naglašeno da je „svako političko izdvajanje žena, štaviše svaka posebna politička ženska aktivnost, postalo smetnja u ostvarenju i ravnopravnosti i aktivnosti“, te da „prirodno je stvaranje saveza ženskih organizacija najrazličitijih vrsta umesto jedne polupolitičke i polucentralizovane organizacije kakav je bio AFŽ“ (Đilas 1953: 4). To je pokrenulo mnoštvo diskusija delegata, na osnovu kojih „Četvrti kongres je ukinuo AFŽ, i istovremeno je osnovan Savez ženskih društava“. (Božinović 1996: 171)
„Žena novog tipa“ kao ideal i kao utvara
„Pedesete godine se često opisuju kao decenija obeležena korakom unazad“, sumirala je Katrina Holst globalno stanje ženskih prava u to vreme, zaključujući da je to bilo „doba domaćica“. (Holst 2013: 60) Kao razlog za to navela je sledeće: „muškarci su se vratili iz rata, žene su se vratile kućama i domovima“. Ali u slučaju članica AFŽ-a situacija je bila često znatno drugačija – one su se takođe vraćale sa fronta, i to sa činovima i odlikovanjima zasluženim u borbi, gde su se često mnogo više isticale od muškaraca, da bi svega par godina kasnije od njih bilo zahtevano da se uklope u uloge smernih domaćica. U tome da se prilagode domu i deci usmeravali su ih i novi tipovi časopisa, od kojih je neke, kao, na primer beogradski „Ukus“, usmeren na modu i domaćinstvo, čak izdavao Centralni odbor AFŽ-a Jugoslavije, i zagrebačka „Naša Moda“, istog profila, koju je u to vreme izdavala Antifašistička fronta žena Hrvatske.
U članku pod nazivom „Žena u borbi / Žena u modi: Odjevne prakse u poslijeratnom periodu socijalističke Jugoslavije na primjeru časopisa Žena u borbi i Naša Moda“ Ivana Čuljak i Lea Vene su ispitale paralele dva naizgled međusobno inkompatibilna časopisa simultano izdavana od strane AFŽ Hrvatske. U jednom naslovu stojala je ’borba’, koja „nije označavala samo borbu za emancipaciju već i borbu za ostvarivanje velikog petogodišnjeg plana (od 1947. do 1951.) propagiranog od strane FNRJ", a u drugom ’moda’, sa zadatkom da svakim brojem utiče na to da se „mijenja svakodnevni odnos prema kulturi odijevanja, odjevnim praksama i izgledu žene“ (Čuljak i Vene 2016: 162 - 163). Časopisom Naša Moda dominirala je "modna silueta i stil u duhu Diorovog New Look-a" (op.cit. 167), dok su modne sadržaje pratili i članci vezani za "zdravlje i higijenu („Kako ćeš pravilno njegovati dijete“, Naša moda, broj 5, 1946), domaćinstvo („Važnost soli u kućanstvu“, Naša moda, broj 5, 1950), savjete za šivanje dječje odjeće „Naša djeca“ uz prateće krojne arke". (op. cit: 167). Za to vreme, u ’Ženi u borbi’ se još uvek štampaju članci poput Lenjinovog osvrta na djelovanje Klare Cetkin, u kome se insistira na dvostrukoj ugnjetenosti žene pod kapitalizmom - od strane kapitala samog, i time što su "kućne robinje, jer ih davi najpipaviji, najgrublji, najtegobniji rad u kuhinji i uopće u pojedinačnom kućnom domaćinstvu i porodici, koji čovjeka najviše zaglupljuje.“ (Žena u borbi, br. 3, 1950) Pa ipak, polako se i taj časopis menja, a već 1958. gubi ’borbu’ iz naslova i postaje list ’Žena’. (Jambrešić Kirin 2013: 196)
Tu promenu paradigme Sklevicki objašnjava time da bez obzira što „u okviru revolucionarne tradicije i općeljudske emancipacije kao cilja socijalne i političke revolucije, antitradicionalističke i antipatrijarhalne vrednote jedina su moguća perspektiva iz koje se može promatrati položaj žene“, za društvo koje je prošlo svoju revolucionarnu fazu, to jest „sa stanovišta praktičnog zadatka organizacije upravljanja zemljom i funkcioniranja jednog novog poretka u nastajanju, tradicijske vrednote, kao uvriježeni mehanizam društvene samoregulacije, daleko su efikasnije". (Sklevicky 1996: 57) Ali gde je tu mesto za onu vrste ženskih subjektivnosti koje su se formirale u ratnim sukobima, na način na koji je to Dušanka Kovačević, jedna od centralnih figura AFŽ-a BiH opisala, „okrećući leđa tradiciji koja je sputavala njihove snage“, izgrađujući „svoj sopstveni ideal žene, nezavisno od toga kakvu ženu želi muškarac“, i to po „mjerilima revolucije i pobjede nad neprijateljem“, i da bi stvorila nove vrednosti, „kao što su odanost narodu, hrabrost, znanje, preduzmljivost“, namesto starih, „koja su od žene tražila poslušnost, nemiješanje u muške poslove, zatvorenost u kući, itd“? (Kovačević 1977: 38-39) Da li je njoj ostavljeno samo da, kako je pisala Tatjana Jukić „nalik na sablast iz prve rečenice Komunističkog manifesta, progoni tada sve što se poslije razvija kao rodna politika socijalizma“ (Jukić 2011:34)?
"Kakva čudna smrt: nevidljiva, nečujna, bez boje, bez mirisa, ništa", konstatuje ženski glas broj jedan. Ta smrt je prosto prihvatanje osuđenosti na postojanje u vidu obestelovljenog ideala, neuklopivog u vladajuće simboličke strukture. Nova žena AFŽ-a iz perioda ustanka i oružane borbe već odavno je samo utvara, čije prisustvo podseća na sve neizmirene simboličke dugove prema borkinjama koje su svoju celokupnu egzistenciju obrazovale spram tog ideala, i nijedan im ulog da mu se približe nije bio preveliki. One su bile potpuno svesne toga da "svaki emancipatorski pokret, pored jasne svijesti o onome što želi osporiti, nužno mora osloboditi potencijale imaginacije i svojih predvodnika i svojih sljedbenika, kako bi se svijet budućnosti ukazao kao cilj dostojan muke i stradanja neophodnih za njegovo moguće ozbiljenje". (Sklevicky 1996: 50) Pružile su lični primer, i za to su i platile. Neke od njih čak i životom. Ostaje sada na onima koji se prepoznaju kao njihovi sledbenici da te potencijale imaginacije razviju, i da rade na tome da to što sada ima utvarni vid postojanja „postane živa prisutnost“. (Derrida 1993: 166)
Stevan Vuković
AMAZON, PARTISAN, GHOST
In the Drifts of History
“And we can be proud that in these difficult but also great days, we gave to the world a new type of woman – the Partisan woman”, wrote Vladimir Nazor in an article titled, “From Amazon to Partisan”, published in No. 7 of the Žena u borbi, (Woman in Battle Magazine) in 1944, while he was the president of the State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia. A Partisan girl appeared to him in a poetic vision as Penthesilea, the daughter of Ares, the god of war. The image of an Amazon from the ancient times came to life in the figure of a Partisan, this time more beautiful and taller, because the Partisan woman does not only act with the strength of her muscles but also with her new knowledge, acquired from all women over the centuries, enriched by reason, spiritualized by essence”. By establishing this type of woman as a role model for new generations, according to Nazor, “we have resolved the women’s question.” (Nazor 1944: 17) The Žena u borbi Magazine, in which the text appeared, was published by the Women’s Anti-Fascist Front of Croatia and after 17 war issues, it continued its life even after the AFŽ was dissolved in 1953, and in 1958 it was renamed to Žena [Woman]. All that time, it was the place from where images of the exemplary modern woman were spread, moving so far away from Nazor’s image of the Partisan woman that at one point it became clear that quite some time before, a woman as a fighter had fallen into the category of ghostly phenomena, completely squeezed out of the field of public presentation, except on the occasions of the ritualized celebrations of the anniversaries of some famous battles. In the role of a ghost, the female fighter belongs both to the past, when she had a leading role in building a new society, and to some threatening time in the future, “when the 'Red', when the woman will yell again. Charge!” By the way, her banishment to the past began at the very end of the war, with her hysterization, i.e., pathologization of her fighting instincts. In the study of “War Neurosis of Yugoslavs”, Hugo Klajn gives the clinical picture of that neurosis, which “mainly manifests itself in the form of re-enactments of a ‘battle attack’, ‘charge’, which the civilians call ‘Partisan disease’, and, in some regions, these patients were called ‘Jurišanti’” (T.N. – derived from the word “juris”, meaning “charge”). (Klajn 1995: 59)
The second wave of feminism tried to change that and to revive the elements of the legacy of female fighters in the real experience of everyday life, which in the meantime became re-traditionalized. In an article published in 1980, No. 4/5 of the Žena Magazine, Žarana Papić, with a series of very clearly defined facts, refutes Slaven Letica’s statement that “the women’s question in our country is a class-overcome one and that (along with the national question) it has been authentically resolved”. She states that “common-sense principles of ‘normality’ of relationships between the sexes still rule, and that women remain passive, socially disengaged, overwhelmed by housework and other ‘normal’ female obligations and duties”, and that “we raise girls to be feminine, i.e., to know where they belong and not ask for too much, and we raise boys to become active, enterprising ‘heads’ of the family”. (Papić 1980: 75) Also, at that time, the school textbooks were still full of examples from the NOB (People’s Liberation War), which included women fighters and revolutionaries, who did not agree to “knowing where they belong”, and who fought for a fairer tomorrow without fear of committing some social transgression. It was only necessary to show that the fight is not over and that the search for their heirs was in progress.
“All resistance is a rupture with what is.” wrote Alain Badiou, pointing out that “for those engaged in it, every rupture begins through a rupture with oneself.” (Badiou 1998: 16) Female fighters who acted within the AFŽ, NOV and POJ (Women’s Antifascist Front, People’s Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia), completed the rupture by joining the units in which they fought. And, in the revolution, “they found something more important than their personal destiny”. (Kovačević 1977: 39) On the other hand, “men could fight and become heroes without having to change their relationship towards women”, while “a woman could not join the fighting ranks without fighting against the conservatism of the family and the legacy of the past”, and therefore “the revolution was not only about getting women out of backwardness and changing her consciousness, it was necessary to change the consciousness of the entire society”. (ibid) And yet, “the socialist revolution was not always able to cross the threshold of the family”. (Morokvasić 1986: 127) Although the ideologues of the revolution always referred to the theses of the Marxism classics, they seemed to constantly overlook, or at least did not take seriously enough, Engels’ views from The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, in which he claimed that “the first class antagonism that appeared in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamy, and the first class oppression, with the oppression of the female sex by the male”. (Engels 1950: 217) Therefore, the views expressed even at the AFŽ conferences in the early fifties, that “we have built socialism to such an extent that women can go back home and raise children” (Gudac- Dodić, 2006: 64) were not automatically considered counter-revolutionary.
Where this led to in the developed self-management is evident from a survey conducted in the early seventies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which the respondents gave the following answers to the question “What is the reason why women do not participate sufficiently in self-management decision-making?”
1. Underdeveloped self-management – 7,69%
2. The traditional view according to which a woman’s place is in the home, not in political and self-management life – 20,17%
3. Insufficiently developed awareness of women – 14,00%
4. Women’s work overload in marriage and family – 51,62%
5. Self-management is not “women’s job” – 4,78%
6. No opinion on it – 1,36%
7. No answer – 0,85% (Kožul, 1973, 114)
According to these results, “woman’s work overload in marriage and family” was the main cause of her social and political inactivity, so the domestication of women in self-management and her transformation into an unpaid domestic servant who did all household maintenance and child care tasks in addition to her job, actually represented her removal from the political decision-making process. It is also important to note that the results were strictly separated, it did not include women who took little part in decision-making due to the “traditional understanding that a woman’s place is in the home, and not in political and self-management life”.
Milica Rakić’s experimental film, Red, if You Didn’t Exist, You Should Be Invented, introduces the character of a heroine, fighter and activist, who – in two figures and three voices – personifies the character of the new woman, developed in the struggle, the character already abandoned during the period of consolidation of power in the FNRJ (Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia). By montaging feature and documentary film scenes, along with the off-screen narration, a narrative is built that does not treat the national liberation struggle and the socialist revolution as something completed in the distant past, but as unfinished processes, interrupted in order to establish a stable government and reach a basic standard of living, while the bearers of those processes were temporarily pacified. That temporality, however, has become relatively permanent, and the demobilized woman fighter and revolutionary remained in a kind of internal exile, wandering like an apparition or ghost around the villa where she had had an illegal Partisan printing press, and from which she had set off to fight. She is occupied with the dialogue between the two poles of her physically split personality, through which some slogans break out now and then, and which is contrasted with a very dry and rough report on the shortcomings of the AFŽ’s work in 1947. She wears the clothes and make-up for movement, but there is no demand for it.
In a Haunted House
The frame in which all the feature film segments take place is reduced to the clearly dated interior of a private villa, whose architecture evokes the nineteen-thirties, and the furniture items a couple of decades following, and that is the time span in which the action takes place. The narration starts with the story of this house, in whose reception hall the viewer seems to be completely imprisoned because neither the view of the building from the outside is offered nor the perspective from which the interior is seen changes. The viewer’s perspective is limited to more or less the same frame, in which only the planes change. In the perfect order that reigns in that space, no traces of human activity can be spotted. It seems as if the villa is possessed by ghosts, and the human figures that enter the frame, one after the other, can be seen as just that, especially considering the fact that the second one is an almost identical double of the first. They do not speak, and their movements are choreographed as poses. Voices speaking on their behalf are heard from off. The first female voice says that the Politika daily newspaper has published the news that the villa is up for sale, again, and at a discount – since it reminds her too much of a deeply repressed past, the activation of which always awakens old, class and gender antagonisms. “It is highly doubtful whether it will find a buyer, because the owner was a revolutionary, communist, anti-fascist, feminist, warrior, striker, labourer, socio-political worker, but above all a woman who was faithful to her ideals.” “Was?”, the viewer may ask, “and what is she now?”, and “when is this ‘now’?”.
The elements of the (apparently quite unfinished) socio-political work of the owner of the house, who once had an illegal printing press in the basement, are then shown through the montage of documentary film footage from the era of reconstruction and building of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, over which the other female voice reads segments of archival documents of the Women’s Anti-Fascist Front of Yugoslavia from 1947 to 1949; starting with a report on the shortcomings of the organization’s work in 1947. These reports are quite raw and harsh, express no empathy, and are full of extremely condemning conclusions at the expense of some members, and especially non-members. This is clearly seen in the example of comments on “the cultural and educational level of women who, partly due to patriarchal upbringing and partly due to their backward ideas about cultural elevation, do not keep up with our social reality”. The reports harshly criticize the “backwardness and primitivism” of ordinary Yugoslav women, members of the working class, which is reflected “in the way they dress and live at home, manage the household, raise the children, as well as in their social and religious narrow-mindedness”, and even claim that “they walk around dirty and untidy, just as the places they live in are untidy.” It certainly provides a very strong counterpoint to the previously shown scenes of a highly stylized living environment and the way the protagonists of the feature-film segment of the story are dressed, as if not in the least touched by ordinary life. It is only insolence that somehow connects these comrades-workers and their comrades - the vanguard of the working class and their emancipators. The second feature segment that follows the documentary begins with a story narrated by a male voice covering female protagonist number two. He refers to the Politika daily newspaper as he tells the scandalous news about a person who “brutally attacked the linoleum of the Yugoslav government, in her patent leather shoes with French heels, even though she knew that all socio-political workers had to leave their high-heeled shoes with the doorman and put on another pair, which they brought with them”. In this second feature segment, the protagonist’s fight against the old order, and for a utopian determined new social order, is transformed into insubordination to the hierarchized structure that was established in the period after the revolution, and the establishment of a new horizon of emancipation. Thus, the basic narrative moves from an analepsis of the female protagonist who speaks in the first person singular, and says: “I founded the Women’s Anti-Fascist Front of Yugoslavia”, to a prolepsis with which she postulates the necessity of a new wave of social change in the future, and says that “the day is getting closer when the ‘Red’, when the woman will yell again: Charge!”…
Between Two Deaths of the AFŽ
“You used my death to shut down the Women’s Anti-Fascist Front,” says the female voice number one about three-quarters of the way through the film, addressing a man who apparently held the highest state and party positions. This statement is followed by a burst of lamenting accusations, in a sequence of sentences, each negative: “You didn’t stop them. Nobody did. Even women did not rebel publicly. They did not leave their positions and functions to devote themselves to family life but they believed that the average Yugoslav woman needed help in that sphere of life only.” Since the answer from the other side does not arrive, the voice continues uttering more and more radical theses, until the conclusion that it was all a “collective suicide”. Thus, the death of the person to whom this (posthumously echoing) voice is attributed is linked to the death of the collective she belonged to, and is placed in a period historically identified as the period between two deaths of the AFŽ.
“The first death of the AFŽ already happened in Yugoslavia, not only with its formal ‘self-abolition’ in 1953, but much earlier, in 1944, as suggested by Lydia Sklevicky”. Chiara Bonfiglioli however concluded at one point, that “the second death happened after 1989, under the attack of a wave of historical revisionism in which women’s history could be rewritten/erased only by ‘invention of tradition’.” (Bonfiglioli, C. et al. 2016: 149) According to Lydia Sklevicky, to whom Bonfiglioli referred, the stage in which the AFŽ had autonomy (only relative, of course, within the people’s liberation movement) lasted only one year from its foundation, on December 6th, 1942. Already in 1944/45, it was replaced with “the stage of direct submission and transmission” (Sklevicky 1996: 86), which means that “its organizational structure was integrated into the hierarchical network of National Liberation Committees (NOO)”. In that process, “the AFŽ almost completely lost its interest dimension (specific emancipatory content), which became only an insignificant part in the mosaic of global revolutionary change”. (Ibid: 87) Until 1989, when the systematic removal of the AFŽ from collective memory began, that organization had a totally ghostly presence, constantly reminding us that “its dissolution should be seen as the failure of Yugoslavia to establish a socialist-communist social order, despite the proclamation of socialism as the ruling and supporting idea of the society”. (Bonfiglioli, C. et al. 2016: 149)
Female voice number one contextualizes this in the film claiming that immediately after the war, “the political and party elite was democratically perverse”, i.e., it was “a true male society, for which women were still subservient wives, good mothers, floating beings wrapped in cosmetics”. According to Gordana Stojaković, this male society easily established itself as dominant because already “in the early 1950s, the sharpness of ‘reckoning’ with patriarchal concepts blunted”, and the “previously supported entry of women into the economy was replaced with their engagement in social life, which mostly meant caring for children, voluntary work and ‘cultural uplifting of women’” (Stojaković 2013: 69) And yet, many political battles had already been won by then, and the women of Yugoslavia had already participated in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1945, which would adopt the new Constitution of 1946, stipulating the equality of women and men “in all areas of state, economic and socio-political life”. (FNRJ Constitution, 1946, Article 24) It was, of course, the formal-legal type of equality, which only provided the possibility for their inclusion in all spheres of social agreement and joint decision-making with regards to the direction in which the new Yugoslav society would develop. In practice, however, everything was quite different, and as soon as the war was coming to an end, debates began about whether “a woman outside/without her home, with a rifle, on the rostrum: was a woman out of her place?” The answer to that question was not yet fixed at that time, it was left for “the time when the guns are silent, when the ruins are cleared away and a new home is built”. (Sklevicky 1996: 55)
And when the guns were silent, the AFŽ was not disbanded immediately, but the process of its subordination to the People’s Front began. It was only in 1953, at the Fourth AFŽ Congress, that Milovan Đilas, a member of the Politburo of the CKKPJ (Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia), gave a speech in which he pointed out that “any kind of political separation of women and, moreover, any special political activities, has become an obstacle to the achievement of equality and activity of women” and that “it is natural to create alliances of women’s organizations of various types instead of a semi-political and semi-centralized organization such as the AFŽ” (Đilas 1953: 4). This triggered a lot of discussions by the delegates, on the basis of which “the Fourth Congress disbanded the AFŽ, and at the same time the Union of Women’s Societies was founded instead.” (Božinović 1996: 171)
“Woman of the New Type” as an Ideal and a Ghost
“The 1950s are often described as a decade marked by a step back,” as Katrina Holst summarized the global state of women’s rights at the time, concluding that it was the “age of the housewife”. (Holst 2013: 60) She states the following as a reason for this: “men returned from war; women returned to homes”. But in the case of members of the AFŽ, the situation was often significantly different – they also returned from the frontline, with ranks and decorations earned in battle, where they often excelled much more than men, only to be asked to fit into the roles of meek housewives a few years later. New types of magazines guided them on how to adapt to the home and children; some of them, such as Belgrade’s Ukus, focused on fashion and the household, were even published by the Central Board of the AFŽ of Yugoslavia, and Zagreb’s Naša moda [Our Fashion], of the same profile, by the Croatian Women’s Anti-Fascist Front.
In the article entitled “Woman in Battle / Woman in Fashion: Clothing Practices in the Post-War Period in Socialist Yugoslavia in the Case of the Žena u borbi and Naša moda Magazines”, Ivana Čuljak and Lea Vene find the parallels in two seemingly mutually incompatible magazines, published simultaneously by the AFŽ of Croatia. In one title there was “battle”, which did not mean only struggling for emancipation, but also struggling for the realization of the great five-year plan (from 1947 to 1951) propagated by the FNRJ”, and in the other, there was “fashion”, with the task of influencing, with each issue, “change in everyday attitudes towards clothing culture, clothing practices and a woman’s appearance”. (Čuljak and Vene 2016: 162-163) In Naša moda, a “fashionable silhouette and style in the spirit of Dior’s New Look” dominated (op.cit. 167) and, along with articles on fashion, there were articles on “health and hygiene (‘How to Properly Take Care of Your Child’, Naša moda, No. 5, 1946), housekeeping (‘The Importance of Salt in the House’, Naša moda, No. 5, 1950), tips for making children’s clothes, Naša djeca [Our Children], with accompanying cutting sheets. (op. cit. 167). At that time, Žena u borbi still published articles such as Lenin’s review of Klara Tsetkin’s actions, pointing out the double oppression of women under capitalism – by capital itself, and by the situation that “they are house slaves, suffocating in the trickiest, roughest, hardest work in the kitchen and generally, in the household and family, which is the most stultifying of all”. (Žena u borbi, No. 3, 1950) Yet, the magazine was slowly changing, and as early as in 1958 it loses the “Battle” in its title and becomes simply Žena Magazine. (Jambrešić Kirin 2013: 196)
Sklevicky explains this paradigm shift by saying that regardless of the fact that “the framework of the revolutionary tradition and general emancipation as the goal of social and political revolution, anti-traditional and anti-patriarchal values are the only possible perspective from which to observe the position of a woman”, for a society that has passed its revolutionary stage, i.e., “from the standpoint of practical tasks conducted by the country’s management organizations and the functioning of a new emerging order, traditional values, as an ingrained mechanism of social self-regulation, are far more efficient.” (Sklevicky 1996: 57) But was there a place for the kind of female subjectivities formed in the war conflicts, in the way that Dušanka Kovačević, one of the central figures of the AFŽ BiH described, “turning their backs on the tradition that restrained their strength”, building “her own ideal of a woman, regardless of what kind of woman men want”, and that according to “the standards of revolution and victory over the enemy”, in order to create new values, “such as loyalty to the people, courage, knowledge, entrepreneurship”, instead of the old ones, “which demanded obedience from women, non-interference in men’s affairs, confinement in the house, etc.”? (Kovačević 1977: 38–39) Was it left to her only, as Tatjana Jukić wrote, “to, like the ghost from the first sentence of the Communist Manifesto, haunt everything that later developed as the gender politics of socialism” (Jukić 2011:34)?
“What a strange death: invisible, silent, colourless, odourless, nothing,” – says the female voice number one. This death is, simply, acceptance of being condemned to exist in the form of a disembodied ideal, incompatible with the ruling symbolic structures. The new woman of the AFŽ from the time of uprising and armed struggle has long since been only a ghost, whose presence reminds us of all the unsettled symbolic debts to female fighters who formed their entire existence following that ideal, and no stake was too great for them to get close to it. They were fully aware that “every emancipatory movement, in addition to a clear awareness of what it wants to challenge, must necessarily release the potential of the imagination of both its leaders and its followers, so that the world of the future appears as a goal worthy of the pain and suffering necessary for its possible realization”. (Sklevicky 1996: 50) They set a personal example, and they paid for it. Some of them even with their life. It is now up to those who recognize themselves as their followers to develop those potentials of imagination, and to work on making what now has a ghostly form of existence “become living presence”. (Derrida 1993: 166)
Stevan Vuković
Participants and collaborators: Vladimir Bjeličić, Olga Dimitrijević; Montage: Irena Parović, Srđan Ćešić; Camera: Vladimir Jevtić; Photo: Aleksandrija Ajduković: Music: Ludmila Frajt; Script: Milica Rakić; Make-up: Dragan Vurdelja; Hair stylist: Jovanka Lujić; Translation: Aleksandar Milajić; The film uses parts of Tereza Kesovija’s song “I onda kradom gledam lice tvoje”, and “Budi se istok i zapad”; Personal photographer of ДРУГарица ракич: Aleksandra Bošković.
CRVENA DA TE NEMA TREBALO BI TE IZMISLITI
Moja sloboda nije po vašem ukusu
Ne može se uskočiti u tuđi život. Ali se može misliti i usložnjavati više sopstvenih. Može se misliti vlastitom glavom, nezavisno od kolektivnih predstava i trasiranih misaonih uzoraka. Misliti koje znači ukloniti sve prepreke koje nas sprečavaju da sagledamo stvari kakve jesu, kakve nam se pokazuju same po sebi, a ne kakvima nam ih prikazuju drugi.
Gde nema ljubavi prema pitanju kao takvom (philo-sophia) sve zastaje. Bez pitanja stavovi postaju predrasude. Zato je i povest ponajviše naša predstava o njoj, u kojoj činjenice često nemaju odlučujuću ulogu.
Milica Rakić svojim radom upravo ukazuje na ta pitanja, na tu prazninu odsustva političkog promišljanja trenutka i nesposobnost formiranja stava u odnosu na prošlost. Umetnica deluje u vremenu upražnjenih pijedastala i ideološke i estetske praznine. U vremenu rastakanja socijalističkog projekta.
Rakić reaguje na ovaj egzorcizam istorijskog iskustva, ali ona se ne opire samo procesurazgrađivanja. Umetnica prvenstveno preispituje prirodu kohabitacije živih i mrtvih senki socijalističkog nasleđa. Prirodu onoga što je istaknuto i onoga što je prećutano. I kao metod ovog konfiskovanog sećanja i identiteta Rakić na izložbi “Crvena, da te nema, trebalo bi te izmisliti”, koristi kombinaciju više medija – performans i video rad, intrigantne jezičke konstrukte, pseudoarhivski ambijent. Hoda na ivici procepa između više izvora znanja i sećanja: arhiva (dokument, tekst, fotografija) i gesta (performans, video rad, slogan, objekat).
Poznato je da rad Milice Rakić pripada polju umetničkih praksi koje koriste arhiv kao produkcioni princip, a ne tek kao puki repozitorijum dokumenata. Ovo dinamičko oruđe otvara polja za pokretanje pojmovnog i delatnog aparata. Postaje medij, koji umetnica nadograđuje postupkom autoarhiviranja i korekcije. U toku je proces ponovne izgradnje. Jer umetnica predlaže drugačije narative i navodi na “ispravno” čitanje događaja. Milica Rakič ispituje reparativni stvaralački potencijal umetnosti. Reparativni potencijal korišćenja arhiva, kao polazišnog medija za celokupni projekat.
Ali ovog puta umetnica proširuje polje funkcionisanja arhiva kao “fikcionalne ustanove” na fizički prostor same galerije, pretvarajući i arhitektonski objekat (nekada rezidencijalnu kuću, reprezentativnu građansku vilu međuratnog perioda), neizmenjen dizajn enterijera iz 30-ih
godina 20. veka i zasebni prostor galerije u medij po sebi. Zauzima zidove, prostor i nevidljive vazdušne membrane objekta, dok se granice između fiktivnog i realnog gube.
Malo je umetnika koji poput Milice Rakić tako precizno i uspešno imenuju svoja dela i izložbe, sa nazivima kao idejnim ekstenzijama samog projekta, koji nose težinu gradivnog materijala izložbe i radova. Sentenca “Crvena, da te nema, trebalo bi te izmisliti”, koncizno detektuje i imenuje samu bit projekta. Jer, postupak umetnice Milice Rakić, određen je ovog puta prvenstveno pozicionim statusom dramatis personae другарице Милице Ракич.
Povodom ove izložbe, zato, možemo predložiti da postoji potkožni hod vremena. Neka nevidljiva mreža koja povezuje ljude različitih epoha. U nekom trenutku dogodi se procep: iz nekog bitno drugačijeg „prostora”, ili sfere, izvan poznatih zakonitosti, a u samom činu kreacije, nešto prodre i „zaglavi” se.
Krećući se između fluidne iracionalnosti i spekulativne discipline, imanentnih umetničkom postupku, Rakić zaposeda ovo čudo produženog trenutka, fizičkog univerzuma. Fizički i simbolički zauzimajući salonski deo objekta u kome se nalazi Nova galerija vizuelnih umetnosti, umetnica izvršava prelaz preko temporalnog praga. Ona koristi tu zonu u kojoj je vreme osrednje gustoće, te omogućava kratki pogled u realnost jednog mogućeg korigovanog sećanja i istorije, koji nam se tek postepeno i nikad potpuno otkriva, ukazujući više na svet magli i utvara, nego na percepciji podatniju realnost.
Naime, u video radu snimljenom u ovom ambijentu, Rakić intenzivira postupak daljeg razvoja osnovne odrednice postojanja другарице Милице Ракич (personae koji umetnički i dramski otelotvoruje Vladimir Bjeličić - umetnik, kustos, istoričar umetnosti i dugogodišnji Miličin saradnik). Višeznačnu ontološku enigmu pojačava neposredni fizički susret Milice Rakić i другарице Милице Ракич. Vizuelno jasni zrcalni refleks drugog, koji se nalazi sa one strane
staklene membrane. Uz navođenje malo poznatih arhivskih podataka o učešću žena u posleratnom jugoslovenskom društvu i političkom institucionalnom okviru, prizor dobija jasnu, teatarski stilizovanu, dramaturšku formu (doprinos dramaturškinje Olge Dimitrijević). Snažne spacijalne kontrakcije ovog autentičnog ambijenta neminovno moraju uticati na definiciju putanje heroina u posebnom “zrcalnom režimu”. Na njihove inverzne pokrete i ogledalna gibanja prostora.
Okupirajući celokupni objekat kuće u Krunskoj 60, izložbeni projekat u oficijelnom galerijskom prostoru obuhvata i kondenzovane verbalne iskaze, dobro “nahranjene” ambivalentnim referencama. Značenjski polemične i napete. Iako nalik otisnutim tekstualnim izvodima, ove poetičko intrigantne verbalne konstrukte ozvučava, zapravo, skriveni slikarski postupak. Jer, vizuelna inteligencija ovog projekta upravo se pokazuje na osnovu probirljivosti sredstava i njihove svrsishodnosti.
Zato su ovi slogani deo jasno formulisanog izložbenog zahvata, koji raspolaže unutrašnjom merom i logikom, te domišljatom idejnom armaturom. Umetnica istovremeno koristi vremenski lavirint arhiva i prostor galerije, kao izmeštene imaginarne lokacije koje omogućuju temporalnu ujedinjenost prostora. Tako i pseudoarhivski ambijent, sa originalnim nameštajem salonskog stana ovog objekta, razvija model arteficijalno umetnutog enterijerskog konteksta.
Postupak umetnice i na taj način ispituje potencijal arhiva kao pomoćnog sredstva kontingentne performativne prakse, dok njena postavka sugeriše na koji način je u galerijskom prostoru moguće rekonstruisati i resemantizovati ono što je istaknuto i ono što je prećutano. Rakić istražuje kapacitet tog sadržaja, koji je ponekad fragmentiran do te mere da celina koja se izdvaja od zaborava postaje destabilizujuća.
Najzad, materijalizacija другарице Милице Ракич u ovom izložbenom projektu kompletira njene dosadašnje emanacije, kao medija komunikacije i stvaralačkog izraza. Sopstvo, kao jedna od ključnih tema umetnosti, predstavlja tako složeni stvaralački impuls, koji se mora realizovati u naizmeničnom ritmu otkrivanja, privida i krinki.
Jer istinita umetnost može biti samo ako stvarnost dovodi do pojave, istovremeno afirmišući tu pojavu kao privid.
RED IF YOU DID NOT EXIST IT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO INVENT YOU
My freedom does not suit you
You cannot jump into another person’s life. However, you can imagine and envision several layers of your own life. You can use your own mind, regardless of collective views and fixed thought patterns. To think is to eliminate all obstacles from seeing things as they are, as they appear to us, and not as others present them.
Without love for inquiry as such (philo-sophia) — everything halts. Without questions, attitudes become prejudices. History is, above all, our own idea of what happened and facts rarely play a decisive role.
Milica Rakić uses these questions in her work, pointing to the void of the current political reflection and the inability to establish an attitude towards the past. The artist works in a time of vacant pedestals and of an ideological and aesthetic emptiness: the time of the dissolution of the socialist project.
Milica reacts to this exorcism of historical experience, resisting more than just the process of the dissolution. The artist primarily questions the nature of the cohabitation of both living and dead shadows of the socialist heritage. She questions the nature of what is highlighted and of what is left untold. At the exhibition, “Red — The Indispensable Colour”, her research method for this confiscated memory and identity is a combination of media — performance and video work, poetic slogans of conflict, and a pseudo-archival environment. She walks on the edge of the gap between multiple sources of knowledge and memory: the archive (document, text, photograph) and the gesture (performance, video work, slogan, object).
Milica Rakić’s work is known for belonging to the field of artistic practices that use archive as a production principle and not as a mere repository of documents. This dynamic tool opens a field for initiating a conceptual and operational apparatus. This becomes a medium through which the artist builds on the process of auto-archiving and correction. The process of renovation is ongoing. The artist, in fact, suggests a different narrative and stirs the audience towards “the correct” reading of events. Milica Rakić explores the restorative creative potential of art: the reparative potential of using an archive as the starting medium for the entire project.
At this exhibition, the artist broadens the field of the archive operating as a “fictional institution” in the physical space of the gallery itself, turning the architectural object — once a residential home, a representative city villa of the inter-war period, with its unchanged 1930s interior— and the gallery space, into a medium in itself.
Milica Rakić is among the few artists who name their works and exhibitions accurately and effectively, with names serving as extensions of ideas of the project itself, bearing the weight of the structure of the exhibition and the works. The phrase – “Red – The Indispensable Colour” – concisely defines and names the very essence of the project. The process used by the artist Milica Rakić, is expressed primarily by the positional status of the dramatis persona — Comrade Milica Rakič.
On the occasion of this exhibition, we posit the existence of the subcutaneous course of time: an invisible web which connects people of different eras. At some point, a crack appears: in the very act of creation, something penetrates and “gets stuck” from an entirely different “space” or sphere, beyond the known rules.
Moving between the fluid irrationality and the speculative discipline, immanent to the artistic process, Milica commands this wonder of an extended moment, in the arrested physical universe. Physically and symbolically taking up the salon part of the building in which the New Gallery of Visual Arts is located, Milica performs the transition across the temporal threshold. She utilizes this zone in which time is of medium density, and enables a brief view into the reality of a possible corrected memory and history, revealed to us gradually and never fully, closer to the world of fog and ghosts, than to the perception of the more yielding reality.
In the video installation filmed in this environment, Milica intensifies the process of further development of the primary determinant of the existence of Comrade Milica Rakič, a persona artistically and dramatically embodied by Vladimir Bjeličić – artist, curator, art historian and Milica’s long-time collaborator. The ambiguous ontological enigma is amplified by the direct physical encounter of Milica Rakić and Comrade Milica Rakič through a visually clear mirroring of the other, reflected on the other side of the glass membrane. Referring to the little-known archival data on the participation of women in the post-war Yugoslav society and political institutional framework, the scene acquires a clear, theatrically styled, dramatic form, as contributed by the playwright Olga Dimitrijević. Intense spatial contractions of this authentic environment inevitably affect the definition of the trajectory of the heroines in the special “mirrored regime” and on their inverse movements and reflected upheavals of the space.
By occupying the entire space of the house in 60 Krunska Street, the exhibition in the official gallery space also includes Milica’s compressed quotes, well “nourished” with the ambivalent references that are significantly controversial and tense. Although resembling printed textual extracts, these seductively intriguing slogans are made audible, in fact, by the hidden painting process. The visual intelligence of this project is based on the careful curation of the tools and their effectiveness.
That is the reason why these slogans are a part of a clearly formulated exhibition function, with its inner measure and logic, and an ingenious conceptual reinforcement. The artist simultaneously uses the temporal labyrinth of the archive and the gallery space, as displaced imaginary locations enabling the temporal unity of the space. This way, the pseudo-archival atmosphere, using the original furniture of the apartment, develops a model of an artificially inserted interior context.
This is how Milica’s process also explores the potential archive as an aid to the contingent performative practice, while her setting suggests how to reconstruct and re-semanticise what is highlighted and what is left untold in the gallery space. Milica explores the capacity of the content, at times fragmented to the point where the whole that stands out from oblivion becomes destabilizing.
Finally, the materialisation of Comrade Milica Rakič in this exhibition project completes her emanations so far, as a medium of communication and artistic expression. Self is, as a key theme in art, a complex creative impulse, which must be represented in an alternating rhythm of revelation, illusion and disguise.
True art can only exist if the reality leads us to a phenomenon, simultaneously affirming the phenomenon as an illusion.
Anica Tucakov
