Are Artists Working People?: Labor, Art, and the People in Yugoslav Socialism

• In Event: Yugoslav (Re)Visions III: What is a People? Yugoslav Perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines how Yugoslav socialism redefined artists as part of the “working people” within a broader project of emancipating labor from capitalist exploitation, where work is conceived as wage labor and a source of surplus value. Rejecting the capitalist mystification of artistic labor as exceptional and autonomous, Yugoslav socialism integrated artists into the broader category of workers building an anti-capitalist future. By challenging the romanticized notion of artistic labor as the domain of exceptional individuals, it positioned art as a form of labor accessible to the people. This redefinition raises a crucial question: What did it mean to include artists in the category of “working people,” and how did this reshape the relationship between art, labor, and the people?

Drawing on the ideas of key thinkers such as Zagorka Golubović and Stevan Majstorović, this paper explores the theoretical underpinnings of art as labor. It also engages with empirical studies on workers’ attitudes toward art and examples of Yugoslav artists who interrogated the relationship between art, labor, and the working class. These perspectives reveal tensions and contradictions of framing art as work.

The paper interrogates the class character of art in Yugoslav socialism, asking how including artists as “working people” challenged or reinforced class divisions. It also considers the broader implications for the concept of “the people” and limits of redefining work beyond capitalist value production. Revisiting these debates, it argues that the Yugoslav case provides a valuable perspective for rethinking the political economy of art work today.

Author

• Katja Praznik, SUNY Buffalo