Recuperated “Non-Aligned” Histories of African Collections in the Museum of African Art and the Museum of Yugoslavia (Belgrade,)

Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis

Abstract

This paper examines the discursive recuperation of “non-aligned” histories and non-alignment—understood as the set of ideas and values behind the Non-Aligned Movement established in the 1960s1—in the interpretation of two African collections, the Museum of African Art: the Veda and Dr. Zdravko Pečar Collection (MAU) and the Museum of Yugoslavia (MY), both in Belgrade, Serbia. Non-alignment shaped socialist Yugoslavia’s foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s, positioning the country aside the socalled Third World countries and associating it with the ideologies of anti-colonialism. Since anti-colonialism has influenced the interpretation of these collections, they offer a somewhat decentred case study within the ongoing global attempts to decolonize museums. However, the presence of non-alignment in these two museums has remained discursive, meaning that it was not immediately evident in their visual representation or museum methodologies. Such dependence on the prevailing political framework made it highly responsive to shifts in broader discourse, which underwent dramatic and significant transformations over time. Beyond the end of the Cold War, which reshaped global political and economic positionings, the wars in the former Yugoslav republics during the 1990s and the formation of newly created national narrations contributed to the effacement of most Yugoslav narratives, including non-alignment. This paper builds on previous research projects (Sladojević 2012, 2014, 2017, 2022) and over two decades of immediate professional experience with both museums, broadly tracing the discursive presence of non-alignment. It emphasizes two main approaches to reviving the non-aligned narrative in these two African collections. The first is artistic and theoretical engagement, which seeks to recuperate Yugoslav legacies as emancipatory guidelines for a more equitable society. The second is the Serbian state’s current appropriation of these legacies, re-employing the Yugoslav non-aligned discourse for certain practical political gains, balancing historical meaning with redefined interpretations.