Socijalno angažirana umjetnost u Bosni i Hercegovini između dva svjetska rata / Socially Engaged Art in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Period between the Two World Wars

Roman Petrović, Petar Tiješić, Vojo Dimitrijević i “Collegium Artisticum“ / Roman Petrović, Petar Tiješić, Vojo Dimitrijević and “Collegium Artisticum“

Abstract

In the Yugoslav cultural and artistic space, between the two world wars, social art did not have a unified concept – stylistically, aesthetically nor ideologically. Permeated by diverse cultural and historical roots, sociopolitical challenges and material conditions, social art, however, in its diversity and plurality, insisted on active participation in transforming the existing social reality. Social engagement manifested itself through all available media, forms and strategies of artistic practice. The artist had, on one side, been employing traditional art forms to convey sociopolitical ideas and ideological messages or to express resistance and a clear anti-war attitude, while on the other side they have been exploring new artistic approaches and thus producing various avant-garde and innovative artistic expressions. By interpreting the complex sociopolitical, cultural and historical conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the context of related tendencies of Yugoslav art of the period, this paper explores the socially engaged artistic practices which aimed to activate the social function of art and affirm the social aspect of artistic practice. The paper demonstrates the measure in which the turn towards socially relevant themes also incentivised formal innovations and avant-garde breakthroughs in oeuvres of Roman Petrović, Petar Tiješić, Voje Dimitrijević and the art collective “Collegium artisticum.ˮ The paper, a segment of the broader doctoral research on socially engaged and avant-garde activity in fine arts, architecture and synthetic theatre in the interwar period in Bosnia and Herzegovina, opens new possibilities for interpreting and evaluating Bosnian-Herzegovinian social art in the said period.