Fototeka (Projection Still II) | 2015 | Archival pigment print | 20" x 30"
Fototeka (Projection Still IV) | 2015 | Archival pigment print | 16" x 24"
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or Nashville photographer Vesna Pavlovic´ the history of obsolescent media like photographic slides parallels the political and personal histories they’ve captured. Pavlovic´ was born in Yugoslavia, and while her work has always reflected the process of photography itself, it also reflects the history of her home country and her personal memories of how images—both still and moving— played a part in creating a sense of national identity in her homeland. Pavlovic´’s latest show at Zeitgeist finds the artist continuing her deconstruction of photography while also introducing an interactive performance element to her work for the first time. Lost Art is about the forgotten media from photography’s past, but it is also about her personal memories of a particular place.
Josip Broz Tito after World War II,” says Pavlovic´ . “The whole archive consisted of black-and-white prints—at that point, none of them have been digitized.” The archive documents Tito’s world travels and other notable events. Tito’s presidency stretched from 1945–1980. “I lived some of that history,” says Pavlovic´. “One of the things that I found was footage of this performance for the president. I participated in that performance in 1979 when I was just a child. I found the video of that event in another archive of newsreel footage.” Such films, along with the events themselves and the propaganda that supported them, make up what the photographer calls “socialist choreography”—rituals, statements, and images that define the individual place in relation to the greater state. Pavlovic´’s show includes stills from the video, including an image that she thinks pictures herself at the event nearly four decades ago. Pictures like these demonstrate that place where political psychology and personal memory overlap in a single captured image.
“This exhibition is my attempt to connect bodies of work that have the theme of obsolescence,” says Pavlovic´.“I want to look at technological obsolescence, but also historical obsolescence and how they speak to one another.” Pavlovic´ ’s ongoing project Fabrics of Socialism features images found in a black-and-white archive at the Museum of Yugoslav History.
The show also includes a collection of slide projectors, screens, and stands which might look like alien objects to younger viewers who won’t recognize the function of the
“The archive was created for former Yugoslav president 28
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