Delving Into Sanja Iveković’s Feminist Archive

Croatian artist Sanja Iveković’s first major exhibition in Kosovo, ‘Women’s House’, consists of a selection of artworks spanning the Yugoslav period and beyond alongside an archival presentation of ephemera and found materials that reveal a lesser-known side of the artist’s practice. The show brings together curator Hana Halilaj and art historian Ivana Bago in an intergenerational and cross-geographical collaboration that offers layered perspectives on a pivotal figure in feminist art, while contributing to the ongoing discourse on Kosovo’s relationship to regional art history following the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

In the section ‘Temporalities of Hope’, the show features a selection of Iveković’s photographs, performance documentation, video works and sculptural pieces. Her practice addresses a range of topics – from the omission of women from anti-fascist history during World War II to the female portrayal in media and advertisements during the socialist period, while pairing them with stories of gender-based violence. What unites these works is the body’s function as a recurring site for political intervention.

The video Personal Cuts (1982), for instance, sees Iveković place a pair of women’s stockings over her head. The coveted garment was beyond the financial means of many women in former Yugoslavia, yet widely a necessary item to project an image of femininity, celebrated during socialist times. Iveković cuts the stockings with scissors, gradually revealing a patch of her face while simultaneously exposing an aspect of Yugoslav society. With each cut, the video is spliced with historical footage of then-current events, including people on shopping sprees and the country’s former President, Josip Broz Tito, giving speeches. As the stocking is repeatedly cut, the artist’s face slowly emerges, paralleling the intertwining of personal and historical narratives, as she ultimately liberates herself from both.

Elsewhere, Women’s House (1998–ongoing) features five plaster casts of faces mounted on metal stands, accompanied by video documentation. Originally created with the participation of women residing in the Autonomous Women’s House in Zagreb, this process-oriented work has since expanded internationally. The five casts featured in this section belong to women from Kosovo who have endured gender-based abuse. Their stories are told in the first person and inscribed on the side of each plinth, acting as a monument to those who are less visible and live on the political margins.

Political and feminist themes are further explored in the show’s voluminous archive. Titled ‘Meeting Points: Documents in the Making, 1968–1982’, Bago’s vast curated presentation of ephemera brings to light dimensions of Iveković’s practice that have often remained in the background, including graphic-design projects, posters, photo collages and sketches of unrealized performances. Throughout eleven sections, Bago grapples with the reality of constructing historical accounts, showcasing the subjectivity of the selection, inclusion and omission of materials. She integrates personal reflections by highlighting the amusing nature of Iveković’s drawing Remembrance (after Kršinić) (1980), which features a classical depiction of the female nude. In the work, the figure admires her own beauty, only to discover a penis – an intervention by the artist that challenges the construction of femininity in visual culture by the male gaze.

The archive aptly addresses the art world’s all-too-frequent neglect in showcasing the work of Yugoslav women. Notably, when Flash Art released a ‘Women in Art’ feature in 1975, which excluded artists from Eastern Europe, Iveković responded with her own fictional grid titled ‘Women in Yugoslav Art’. ‘Women’s House’ continuously wrestles with the discrepancy between mediatized representations and lived experiences of women in socialist Yugoslavia and beyond. Recognizing that art history often overlooks or reduces the contributions of women, Bago’s archive offers rich references around Iveković’s work and fosters illuminating dialogues only she can sustain.

Sanja Iveković’s ‘Women’s House’ is on view at National Gallery of Kosovo until 12 January 

_{Main image: Sanja Iveković, ‘Women’s House’, 2024, installation view. Courtesy: The National Gallery of Kosovo; photograph: Agon Dana}