The monument Petrova Gora, from Igor Grubic’s film Monument (2015).

The monument Petrova Gora, from Igor Grubic’s film Monument (2015).

Essays Animating brutalism – cinematic renderings of Yugoslav monuments

The study of monuments tends to focus on human agency, in the form of political history, war history, antagonism, trauma and so on. Aesthetic qualities are often seen as superficial and fetishized qualities that belie the impact of the monument in a regional context. The rurally situated monuments of former Yugoslavia, however, must be seen through their extraordinary qualities as works of art, carrying an agency of their own. Rather than restricting the meaning of their impact, their aesthetic qualities and impact in the environment allow them to speak to us today from a new horizon.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2023:4, p 34-41
Published on balticworlds.com on December 11, 2023

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abstract

The study of monuments tends to focus on human agency, in the form of political history, war history, antagonism, trauma and so on. Aesthetic qualities are often seen as superficial and fetishized qualities that belie the impact of the monument in a regional context. The rurally situated monuments of former Yugoslavia, however, must be seen through their extraordinary qualities as works of art, carrying an agency of their own. Rather than restricting the meaning of their impact, their aesthetic qualities and impact in the environment allow them to speak to us today from a new horizon.

Keywords: monuments, Yugoslavia, Spomeniks, commemoration

Read the full article as pdf (download above).

The article is part of a theme in the printed journal 2023:4, “Monuments, new arts and news narratives” with guest editor Cecilia Sjöholm>>.

  • by Cecilia Sjöholm

    Professor of Aesthetics at Södertörn University and project leader of the research project Distrusting Monuments. Art and the war in Former Yugoslavia (funded by the Baltic and East European Studies Foundation). She studies the relation between art and politics in contemporary culture. She has published extensively on art, psychoanalysis and critical theory.

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