Anti-monumentalism (or
Counter-monumentalism) is a philosophy in art that denies the presence of any
imposing, authoritative social force in public spaces. It developed as an
opposition to monumentalism whereby authorities (usually the state or dictator)
establish monuments in public spaces to symbolize themselves or their ideology,
and influence the historical narrative of the place. According to artist Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer, anti-monument "refers to an action, a performance, which
clearly rejects the notion of a monument developed from an elitist point of
view as an emblem of power." Krzysztof Wodiczko's Bunker Hill Monument
Projections and Do-Ho Suh's Public Figures can be considered examples of
anti-monumentalism.
Some German artists, wrestling with the
issue of remembering the Holocaust, have very intentionally moved away from any
form of traditional memorialization. They have created instead what James
Young, the University
of Massachusetts
Anti-monumentalism is a movements that has
the purpose to existing monuments whose statement you no longer support, but
they do not change (Denkmalumeabmung) or remove (Denkmalsturz) would like, for
example, for reasons of monument protection, another statement (antithesis)
display.
Anti-monumentalism artists have, “a deep
distrust of monumental forms in light of their systematic exploitation by the
Nazis, and a profound desire to distinguish their generation from that of the
killers through memory.”
Part of the challenge has to do with the
power of traditional monuments to suggest completeness, or a false sense of
closure. We grapple with complex political, social, or historical issues and
then construct a monument. That monument suggests that we’ve done what needs to
be done; we’ve worked through the issues, and the monument is the answer to
those issues.
There is an argument that suggests that
monuments can ironically disconnect us from history and cushion us from it;
they can anesthetize us rather than deeply connect us to the past. It is almost
as if memory becomes invested in the monument rather than us, as if the
existence of the monument takes over the responsibility for remembering.
This set of German artists realize that
there would be a profound betrayal and a staggering irony if permanent German
monuments to the Holocaust, no matter how well–intentioned, functioned as the
final solution to the Final Solution: if the monuments served inadvertently to
erase harsh memory and distance people from that painful past – if monuments
made them comfortable enough to move on, forget, and abnegate the
responsibility for not forgetting.
For the German artists who create
countermonuments, there should be no forgetting, no moving on, no closure, no
comfort zone in Holocaust memorialization, no abdicating the responsibility of
holding the painful past directly in mind.
Holocaust countermonuments cannot aim to be
beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. That beauty or aesthetic pleasure should
come from such an event as the Holocaust would be another path to false comfort
and consequently a lie.
The countermonuments that emerge from these
stark premises are often short–lived rather than permanent. They are meant to
engage people directly, not to achieve solace but rather discomfort. Some
encourage people to write on them, invite desecration, rather than sit
separately on pedestals or behind fences. Sometimes they try to capture a sense
of loss through negative space – the experience of shire emptiness.
Examples
Built in 1936 in Hamburg Hamburg firestorm and escape
group Cap Arcona existing monument
of Alfred Hrdlicka
The war memorial of the sculptor August
Henneberger from 1925 in front of the St. Johannis in Altona was supplemented
in 1996 by a memorial monument by Rainer Tiedje.
Jenny Holzer installed a laser projection
on the Völkerschlachtdenkmal near Leipzig
For the monument to the dead of the
Prussian Fusilier Regiment 39 in Dusseldorf-Golzheim 2016 a monument was
politically discussed.
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