REBELLION IN GAVRILA PRINCIPA STREET IN BELGRADE

Text topic: cultures of resistance

Text author: Татјана Росић

The paper examines (anti) hegemony as a strategic necessity of

contemporary culture of resistance, embodied in the complex social and

political context of globalization and its consequences, with particular

reference to the strategies of contemporary culture of resistance in

contemporary Serbia. The focus is on a comparative analysis that

includes the graffiti Gavrilo Princip (2013) by an anonymous artist /

art group BUNT, found in Gavrila Principa Street in Belgrade and the

video spot for the song titled “Bunt” (2007) by the band Disciplin A

Kitchme, related to the last handmade candy shop in Belgrade with the

address in the same street. The two selected examples are created in a

different subcultural contexts of Serbia today, with different ideological

signatures and artistic connotations: while the graffiti Gavrilo Princip

could be associated with infra-political traditions of those subcultures

in which the narrative about the Serbian national struggle is diligently

nurtured, the video spot “Bunt” by Disciplin A Kitchme is located in

the anti-imperialistic and anti-consumeristic tradition of rock-n-roll

rebellion, with a particular focus on Serbian society and its political

pathologies, including the unusually strong fostering of a nationalist

political discourse. Selected art works, however, are both characterized

by the controversial status of the political, historical and cultural

Yugoslav legacy, which is re-examined by and through them. The

works analyzed – precisely due to the complexity with which they

deliberately refer to the Yugoslav heritage – are recognized as places of

subversive and polyvalent resistance to the dominant discourses within

the public speech arena of contemporary Serbian society. Thus, Gavrila

Principa Street reveals contemporary Serbian culture of resistance as

a hub/node of ideologically and culturally opposed discourses that are

mutually invoked and disputed, producing the strategically needed

“noise” indispensable in the process of interfering and transcoding of

the hegemonic social and cultural codes.