I’m grateful to learn a more detailed and contextual history of these monuments; I’ve only appreciated them through the “clickbait” lens as “Tito’s monuments” as the article says.
What are the ethics of skateboarding in a death camp or over graves of people that died fighting fascists? What's the skateability of Dachau? Does Treblinka need a half pipe so it's not forgotten?
Well, actually it was not trivial at all and we had big internal discussions on how to do that properly and respectfully, taking the chance to let our readers (that follow skateboarding) know what lays behind these monuments.
I do really understand what you write, but I am also grateful for having been able to discover history in that way.
> But now, argues Owen Hatherley, it is vital that we make the effort to understand what they truly represent
Maybe this speaks of the weaknesses of abstract art when used for this. No one thinks of the Lincoln Memorial or Mount Rushmore or Taj Mahal or Arc de Triumph like this. In some sense, their memorial status comes out in the form itself. This is not the case with abstract art like the spomeniks.
When I first saw an image of the Taj Mahal, I had no idea it is a memorial, I thought/assumed it was a classical temple akin to the Parthenon. At least as a kid growing up in California it seemed classic but also abstract and alien compared to the strict right angles, rectangular platforms and formulaic columns of similarly revered but much older European/Mediterranean structures.
An obvious counterexample to this which speaks to the power of abstract art as a memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin which is an incredibly powerful piece of abstract public memorial art, and very near the Lincoln memorial so well worth a visit for anyone who finds themselves in that part of Washington DC. I personally admire Lincoln greatly but of the two I found visiting the Vietnam Veterans memorial a far more moving experience.
Secondly I would say the fact that they provoke thought about what they represent (rather than say Mount Rushmore in particular which is a profoundly superficial public monument) is precisely part of the value of abstract art. The Lincoln Memorial says Lincoln was a great man. OK cool. Anyone who has studied American history knows that.
I don’t know about that - do you know which triumph the Arc de Triomphe commemorates? Isn’t it just as much seen in a meme form as an example of just ‘grand classical European architecture’, divorced from its Napoleonic imperialistic origins and not considered in terms of the fact that the French defeat of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, at the cost of thousands of lives, and leading to the fall of Vienna, which it was commissioned for, was not a politically neutral event.
Does the fact that the French tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I was created beneath it change the meaning of the arch?
It seems to me it’s a pretty complex, abstract object whose story isn’t easily reduced to a simple meme either.
Kind of true, but those are bad examples. Wait, is Taj Mahal a monument, not a palace? Also Mount Rushmore relies on knowing the faces on it, otherwise one might assume it’s some local car dealers. Arc de Triumph is actually abstract, how would you know its purpose if you don’t know the context?
You can just as easily interpret this as the power of non-representational art to express and deal with the incomprehensible. In this case it distinguishes these from simply monuments to great leaders or the dead of some glorious battle.
Perhaps that was intentional, or came from a collective subconscious desire to commemorate, yet also to forget and move on.
Interwar abstract art such as cubism had twisted and distorted figures, some was a reaction to the twisted and broken bodies of the veterans of WW1. Hitler hated that style of art because he saw it as disparaging veterans, war-glorifier as he was.
It would make sense that a ‘progressive’ regime would want to break with traditionalism and create its own novel style of monument. You see this trend in a lot of postwar aesthetic movements, like the failed housing projects of modernism. They don’t glorify anything; they exist imposingly and have a strong bias to function. Yet this itself is dehumanizing in its own way.
Tl;dr: traditional aesthetics glorify the nation and the state, including its human flaws. Abstract art tends to dehumanize itself as a way to avoid these flaws, especially in the wake of major human catastrophes.
The Soviet and Fascist styles of art which glorified the party and its base straddles both sides.
I lived in and have returned to visit former Yugoslavian countries over the past 25 years and until just now had not come across these spomeniks. I'm glad I was able to learn the true stories about some of them at the same time. Overall I'm pretty disappointed in the weird vibe of the article. This statement was particularly confusing:
"Yet not only in Croatia, but in France, the USA, Britain, real, open fascism – fences, walls, racial laws, deportations, camps – is once again mainstream."
Deportation camps are once again mainstream in these countries?? Are they? And "once again" as if they ever were mainstream? Did I miss something?
That kind of makes me doubt everything else said in the article. Overall the article seemed to be very anti fascist (great!) and pro post WWII communist (not great) even seemingly celebrating Yugoslavia's defeat of the Allies?
Anyway, I would love to see more simple explanation of each spomenik like this article gives for some of them (artist, purpose of the monument, dates, etc.). Anyone know where to find that?
This all depends on what is meant by “fascism” and “mainstream.” The author seems to have viewed immigration restrictions as fascist.
It seems like it would be better to discuss immigration policy and enforcement directly (when someone wants to do that) rather than having meta-discussions about what category it belongs in.
And yes, I am aware that in Croatia there was actual Fascism complete with camps and everything around WWII times. And yes those other countries in the list also rounded up groups of people into camps at the same time period, but I would not have called what the US, Britain, and France did Fascist or mainstream back then, and I'm not aware of anything like it today.
The way I interpreted that sentence is not that fascism was established and flourishing back in 2016 when this was written, but rather that the fascist ideals and concepts were being openly pushed without (enough) sanction by the mainstream.
The reason why I interpret it that way is simple: when fascists are actually in power, there's no such thing as "mainstream" anymore. Authoritarian rule means that there's only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or "evil", depending on the specific flavor of authoritarianism. "Mainstream", on the other hand, implies that there are other views and that they can be discussed.
> Authoritarian mean there’s only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or “evil”, depending on the specific flavor of Authoritarianism.
Oh wait, that sounds exactly the like the United States. If you don’t believe what 95% of the “mainstream” media is pushing you’re labeled all sorts of things. The biggest on is conspiracy theorist, when all it take is ~ 6-9 months before the conspiracy theorists are proven correct. Let’s not get into how often the terms racist, fascist, and nazi are thrown around when people of opposing views disagree. Somehow it’s almost always the one side slandering, due to lack of argument.
In Croatia there arent any camps and the country is very peaceful. However there are plenty of neo-Nazis, especially amongst football supporters and even some political groups (part of the government). There are also some people that the government is too affraid to touch, given their war veteran status and public popularity. In the article bellow is a photo of one such person, called Marko Skejo. The picture tells a thousand words
And there are a lot of people that write crap about Croatia around the Web just like you. There are neo-nazis even in Russia....so what we should do about that?! Get a grip.
The U.S. is absolutely creating deportation camps, and there's a national zeal for evicting people here. It's, unfortunately, bipartisan.
The conditions in U.S. camps are dire, children sleeping on bloody straw, smeared with feces. Families separated. Food, water, and shelter inadequate to sustain life in the deserts where these camps are.
In Britain, the attitude is similar pro deportation, but the refugees aren't put into camps as far as I know. However, the buildings that they are in have been subject to attacks and arson.
The "once again" probably refers to both the historical mainstream opinion that Japanese migrants should be moved to concentration camps within the U.S., and of course the mainstream beliefs in Nazi Germany.
(Note, I'm not trying to draw any parallels between any of these camps. Please don't infer that I'm calling anyone nazis except the nazis. These examples can all exist and be over the threshold of "cruel" without needing to be compared to one another.)
> The U.S. is absolutely creating deportation camps, and there's a national zeal for evicting people here. It's, unfortunately, bipartisan.
I believe the point the comment was making is that no reasonable person would call the existence of walls or fences, or the deportation of illegal/undocumented immigrants fascist (even those who believe that free migration is a human right), or that "racial laws" are mainstream (except maybe in affirmative action, but it benefits PoC so the author of the article most likely wouldn't consider it a racial law).
To me the authors accusatory tone seems misguided and, indeed, clickbaity (people love to hate)- which is a shame, since the information about the architectural sculptures called spomenik the article offers is pretty interesting. I believe that the interest in the purely formal qualities of thise "spomeniks" is a proper appreciation. Getting people interested by these offers an entrypoint into a deeper engagement with their historical background and the representational purpose. "its great that pictures of spomeniks are circulating, you might wonder what the meaning of those seemingly alien structures in the nowhere actually is" would be the proper cause for propagating these information imho. Its actually remarka le about these memorials that they manage to get their image circulating.
While that's true that we use word spomenik for all monuments, I think outside of Balkans it's now recognized as a word describing specific abstract and grandiose type of monument. So world (or Internet community at least) took our word and appropriated it to mean something else.
Anyway, if someone visit one of Balkan countries and ask to see spomenik, expect locals to be confused and would not know what exactly you mean.
Yeah what’s the name for this accusatory tone highbrow clickbait? There’s a companion article on the shame you should feel about “ruin porn” because surely you feel “desire to gloat over the decomposing corpse of the West’s former Communist enemy.”
I can say I’ve never felt that but have enjoyed the sort of x-ray view you get of the structure sometimes + imagining what it was like at full splendor. To me it’s a combined feeling of wonder and loss.
From what I understand, the Ustaše (I think they were Croatian), were so brutal, they sickened the Gestapo.
Tito held Yugoslavia together, but that unity couldn't survive his passing. They've been fighting each other for so long, that I suspect the original reasons are lost in antiquity.
"ancient hatreds" is a readily-reachable trope in such contexts but it obscures far more than it clarifies. Plus in most such cases, it's usually oversimplifying and inaccurate to the point where it's best avoided. Ancient hatreds didn't cause, say, the Ustaše.
Readit News
https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/
Casual trivia: The film Last and First Men consists primarily of slow pans of Spomeniks.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8015444/
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Maybe this speaks of the weaknesses of abstract art when used for this. No one thinks of the Lincoln Memorial or Mount Rushmore or Taj Mahal or Arc de Triumph like this. In some sense, their memorial status comes out in the form itself. This is not the case with abstract art like the spomeniks.
Despite not knowing the details, you knew it was designed to revere or commemorate something even if you did not know the details.
Secondly I would say the fact that they provoke thought about what they represent (rather than say Mount Rushmore in particular which is a profoundly superficial public monument) is precisely part of the value of abstract art. The Lincoln Memorial says Lincoln was a great man. OK cool. Anyone who has studied American history knows that.
Does the fact that the French tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I was created beneath it change the meaning of the arch?
It seems to me it’s a pretty complex, abstract object whose story isn’t easily reduced to a simple meme either.
Interwar abstract art such as cubism had twisted and distorted figures, some was a reaction to the twisted and broken bodies of the veterans of WW1. Hitler hated that style of art because he saw it as disparaging veterans, war-glorifier as he was.
It would make sense that a ‘progressive’ regime would want to break with traditionalism and create its own novel style of monument. You see this trend in a lot of postwar aesthetic movements, like the failed housing projects of modernism. They don’t glorify anything; they exist imposingly and have a strong bias to function. Yet this itself is dehumanizing in its own way.
Tl;dr: traditional aesthetics glorify the nation and the state, including its human flaws. Abstract art tends to dehumanize itself as a way to avoid these flaws, especially in the wake of major human catastrophes.
The Soviet and Fascist styles of art which glorified the party and its base straddles both sides.
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"Yet not only in Croatia, but in France, the USA, Britain, real, open fascism – fences, walls, racial laws, deportations, camps – is once again mainstream."
Deportation camps are once again mainstream in these countries?? Are they? And "once again" as if they ever were mainstream? Did I miss something?
That kind of makes me doubt everything else said in the article. Overall the article seemed to be very anti fascist (great!) and pro post WWII communist (not great) even seemingly celebrating Yugoslavia's defeat of the Allies?
Anyway, I would love to see more simple explanation of each spomenik like this article gives for some of them (artist, purpose of the monument, dates, etc.). Anyone know where to find that?
It seems like it would be better to discuss immigration policy and enforcement directly (when someone wants to do that) rather than having meta-discussions about what category it belongs in.
https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/rwanda-plan-explained-why-...
https://www.gov.uk/immigration-removal-centre
The reason why I interpret it that way is simple: when fascists are actually in power, there's no such thing as "mainstream" anymore. Authoritarian rule means that there's only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or "evil", depending on the specific flavor of authoritarianism. "Mainstream", on the other hand, implies that there are other views and that they can be discussed.
/sarcasm
> Authoritarian mean there’s only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or “evil”, depending on the specific flavor of Authoritarianism.
Oh wait, that sounds exactly the like the United States. If you don’t believe what 95% of the “mainstream” media is pushing you’re labeled all sorts of things. The biggest on is conspiracy theorist, when all it take is ~ 6-9 months before the conspiracy theorists are proven correct. Let’s not get into how often the terms racist, fascist, and nazi are thrown around when people of opposing views disagree. Somehow it’s almost always the one side slandering, due to lack of argument.
https://www.index.hr/mobile/vijesti/clanak/video-skejo-i-hos...
The conditions in U.S. camps are dire, children sleeping on bloody straw, smeared with feces. Families separated. Food, water, and shelter inadequate to sustain life in the deserts where these camps are.
In Britain, the attitude is similar pro deportation, but the refugees aren't put into camps as far as I know. However, the buildings that they are in have been subject to attacks and arson.
The "once again" probably refers to both the historical mainstream opinion that Japanese migrants should be moved to concentration camps within the U.S., and of course the mainstream beliefs in Nazi Germany.
(Note, I'm not trying to draw any parallels between any of these camps. Please don't infer that I'm calling anyone nazis except the nazis. These examples can all exist and be over the threshold of "cruel" without needing to be compared to one another.)
I believe the point the comment was making is that no reasonable person would call the existence of walls or fences, or the deportation of illegal/undocumented immigrants fascist (even those who believe that free migration is a human right), or that "racial laws" are mainstream (except maybe in affirmative action, but it benefits PoC so the author of the article most likely wouldn't consider it a racial law).
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It's like someone going "did you know American monuments are known as monuments locally?"
Anyway, if someone visit one of Balkan countries and ask to see spomenik, expect locals to be confused and would not know what exactly you mean.
I can say I’ve never felt that but have enjoyed the sort of x-ray view you get of the structure sometimes + imagining what it was like at full splendor. To me it’s a combined feeling of wonder and loss.
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From what I understand, the Ustaše (I think they were Croatian), were so brutal, they sickened the Gestapo.
Tito held Yugoslavia together, but that unity couldn't survive his passing. They've been fighting each other for so long, that I suspect the original reasons are lost in antiquity.
Tribalism is very human, and results in the worst fights.
I grew up in Africa, and saw what tribal hatred looks like. Not pretty, but Africa doesn't have the monopoly on it.
We have tribes all over Europe, and America. The behavior is exactly the same, everywhere.
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