I'm asking because I've been listening to Laibach, which began as an art collective in the former Yugoslavia. I was under the impression the band could have been killed for creating art that portrays the state in a negative light.
What was the relationship between the Yugoslavian state and artistic expression, and what impact did this have on the population?
There was censoring (most often even in a form of self-censure). Which meant (for songs, for example) they wouldn't be played on the radio or TV or, in severe cases, they couldn't even be published. In case of books, there were either not bublished or, more often, they would be 'removed' from public libraries (in practice, they would be hidden). There's an exhibition right now called Stop, cenzura! that deals with what happened to books that were deemed 'undesirable' and for songs it was pretty much similar. But people definitely wouldn't get killed over something like that, not even arrested (and especially not in the '80.
There were actually quite a few bands that criticised the government, though most used metaphores and such, but everyone knew what was going on. In blatant a cases they were sometimes made to remove offensive parts or they would be banned from radio/not invited to TV and such. In some cases the songs would be sold for a while and then the stock 'mysteriously' disappeared; I even own one such record, a sort of a parody song that was written by a very famous Slovenian author.
Laibach was another matter since there wasn't just critisism of society as with other bands, but the nazi imagery, but still, there wasn't more than censure/banning of certain imagery (and that meant they couldn't put out certain posters to advertise their concerts and such things).