[YUGOSLAV NEO

Marinovi?, Milomir and Milan Anti?, editors. II. Aprilski susreti. 4?11 aprila 1973 [Second April meetings on 4?11 April, 1973]. Belgrade: SKTs, 1973. Quartos (29.5 ? 21 cm). Contemporary embossed cloth over boards with nine volumes of the bulletin bound together, preserving the original printed wrappers. Each issue with 17?34 leaves (ca. 200 leaves total), with hectographed texts to rectos only. Occasional illustrations. In Serbian, some English. Spine sun-tanned; else very good. Marinovi?, Milomir and Milan Todorovi?, editors. 4. Aprilski susreti. 4?12 aprila 1975 [Fourth April meetings on 4?12 April, 1975]. Festival proshirenikh medija, Studentski kulturni tsentar Beograd [Festival of Expanded Media. Cultural Center of Belgrade]. Belgrade: SKTs, 1975. Oblong quarto (20 ? 29 cm). Original printed card wrappers with nine volumes of the bulletin bound together, with original bulletin wrappers preserved. Each issue with 17?34 leaves (ca. 200 leaves total), with hectographed texts to rectos only. Some illustrations, mostly from photographs. In Serbian, some English. Light wear and creasing to card cover; else very good. Two complete runs of nine bulletins each (for the years 1973 and 1975) of this journal and catalog documenting the ?April Meetings? of the Festival of Expanded Media hosted by the Belgrade Student Cultural Centre (SKC) in 1972?1977. Established in 1971 in response to the 1968 student protests, the SKC became the nexus of neo-avant-garde artistic activity in Yugoslavia, with its gallery hosting exhibitions of top international contemporary artists and helping launch international careers of domestic artists such as Marina Abramovi? The volumes come from the personal collection of one of the founding members of the Student Cultural Centre, art historian and curator Dunja Bla?evi?, who directed its gallery until 1977. Through her work at the SKC, Bla?evi? became a key figure in the development of performance, video, and feminist art in Yugoslavia. In her autobiography, Marina Abramovi? remembers: ?At long last the secret police and their wives left, and we finally got our Student Cultural Center ? the SKC. And the SKC got a miraculous director, a young woman named Dunja Bla?evi? [?] Just before the center opened, Dunja had attended the first Documenta, an avant-garde art exhibition in Germany under the aegis of a brilliant Swiss curator, Harald Szeeman. Szeemen really raised the profile of conceptual and performance art. Dunja took it all in. When she came back to Belgrade she was inspired and excited and she proposed the SKC?s first exhibition, which she called Drangularium.? (See: Walking Through Walls: A Memoir, pp. 47). Bla?evi? also co-curated the April Meetings (with Bo?idar Ze?evi?), with a short introductory text by Bla?evi? included in the volumes. Each bulletin in the volumes corresponded to one day of the festival, containing the text and descriptions of each performance, screening, and lecture. The bulletins served as a program for the day, as well as documentation of the events, containing reviews and artist comments during discussion for that day. Art historian Anja Foerschner writes ?From its first iteration, the April Meetings? desire to transcend disciplinary, artistic, and geographic boundaries was unparalleled in Yugoslavia (and even beyond). [?] The organizers stated as a goal for the April Meetings to fill ?the void in research? that is the presentation of accomplishments of artists that otherwise would remain anonymous for the cultural public of Yugoslavia and especially Belgrade? (See Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia 1971 ? 2001, p. 27). The first bulletin in the 1973 volume contains the original call for submissions which asks that ?submitted works must be explained in detail with plans, graphic designs, models, photographs, slides? and the volumes contain occasional images. It also includes the full program for the first meetings held in 1972. In the subsequent years, the festival expande