Mileta Prodanović: An Older and More Beautiful Belgrade. A Visual Chronicle of the Milošević Era

This book is a collection of reflections on the visual transformations of Serbia and its capital Belgrade in the period marked by great economic and cultural turbulence, war in the former Yugoslavia, and, most of all, the political regime personified by Slobodan Milošević (1989Milošević ( -2000)).The author, an astute observer and witness of these transformations, connects the changes in visual culture and communication in the public and private spheres of life with wider social and political developments.Accordingly, the book focuses on that single step which, in the words of the author's colleague, Bosnian artist Jusuf Hadžifejzović, separates "kitsch" and "blood". 1 The three main chapters are titled "New Forms of Sacrilege", "Pathopolis", and "Necropolis".The first chapter discusses various aspects of profanation of the Orthodox Christian imagery in the postsocialist "revival" of religious life in Serbia, including the historical roots of this profanation in the Soviet Union and socialist Yugoslavia.The second chapter discusses a number of manifestations of degradation of visual culture and urban life in Belgrade and establishes connections between these developments.The author takes a thorough look at a wide variety of phenomena, such as banknotes as "images of the state" (44); medals as "reflections of incoherent ideology" (96); Belgrade's eclectic and incoherent architecture; its downfall as a result of the consequences of war in former Yugoslavia, including the NATO bombing in 1999; the residences of the new social elites and Serbian warprofiteering nouveau riche; the degradation of public monuments; urban grafitti; advertising and visual communication; election posters and slogans; public and private megalomania, celebrity charlatans, and their public presence, to name but a 1 For more on the artistic performance "From Kitsch to Blood, There Is Only One Step", see "Od kiča do krvi je samo jedan korak.