Labels for the Transformation of Monuments

Destruction of monuments 1. The Vendome Column, France, 1871 The culmination of Courbet's political career as a Communard as the destruction of the Vendome Column, a monument to the military victories of Napoleon Bonaparte made out of the cannons captured at the Battle of Austerlitz (1805). He had called for the column's dismantling back in 1870, for he said it lacked all artistic merit and served only to perpetuate imperial war and conquest, but the actual decree for its destruction was passed before Courbet was elected to the Commune.

2. Tsars Monuments, Russia, 1917 3. Monument to the Revolution, Germany, 1935 When 33 communists were shot during and after the Spartacus uprising in 1919, a mass demonstration made sure they were given a common grave. Among the burried were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The grave became a site of remembrance for communists – who also raised a monument in 1926. The experimental monument was developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Nazi desacralized monument in Febuary 1933 and the Gestapo arrested everyone who honoured the site with flowers – till the memorial site was demolished it in 1935.

4. Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Cracow, Poland, 1940 5. Lenin monument in Sevastopol, 1941 6. 1956 – Stalin monument in Budapest, 1956 7 Monument to KGB founder Dzerzhinsky, Moscow, 1991 8. Abandoned and destroyed Partisan Monument in Knin, Croatia 9. Saddam Hussein Monument, Baghdad, Iraq, 03.04.2003 10. Leninopad (the season of falling of Lenin monuments at Ukraine),november 2013-ongoing 11. The monument to Stepan Bandera in Lviv region, 2014

Performing monumentality 1. A Stylite

A stylite (from Greek στυλίτης, stylitēs, «pillar dweller») is a type of Christian ascetic in the early days of the Byzantine Empire who lived on pillars, preaching, fasting and praying. Stylites believed that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls. The first stylite was probably Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed on a pillar in Syria in 423 and remained there until his death 37 years later.

2. Action Freedom to George Ribbon!

Berlin Art Collective «In Progress», Treptov park, 09.05.2014,Berlin

We celebrate the victory over fascism – which has not happened 69 years ago, but it must happen today. We are defeating cultural code of fascism by breaking the machine of representation of the sublime.

George Ribbon is a trademark of Victory which aims to eliminate the red colour from the public space. The RED is replaced with black and orange barcode merging in BROWN. This substitution is happening instead of the only decent action which the memory of antifascist heroes is truly deserved – to clean the planet from war, violence and inhumanity.

St. George ribbon like a snake that was struck by St. George. Celebration of Victory Day – is a social BDSM- practice of orgiastic control and punishment. If fascism is dressing in the garb of killed anti-fascism then we must tear down this costume.

Freedom to George Ribbon! Knit it into bondage! Use as a hanger! Yes Nihilism! (from the press release of the action)

3. Action “Fixation” by Artist Petr Pavlensky, Red Square, Moscow, 10 November, 2013

Artist nailed his scrotum to in front of the Kremlin wall as a "a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of modern Russian society".

4. Majakovsky Monument Action by Anatoly Osmolovsky, Moscow 1993

The artist Anatoly Osmolovsky got on top of the giant monument to Vladimir Mayakovsky in Moscow. Mayakovsky is a symbolic figure of the early 20th century Russian avant-garde.

Osmolovsky called his performance "Netsezudik Travels to the Land of the Brob-ding-nag," after the land of the legendary giant's in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Netsezudik is a character of his own invention whose name, in a made-up language, means "the extraneous one."

5. Sculpture in the expanded field, Bucharest, 2011

“If you don’t want us, we want you”, the work of Alexandra Pirici represents different enactments of living sculptures, confronting public heroic monuments and buildings in Bucharest, such as the controversially rebuilt statue of Carol I, the monument of the 1989 Revolution or the House of the People.

6. Anonymous Painting Interventions into The Soviet Army Monument Sofia (2013-2014)

September 2013 saw the monument waking up with Red Army soldiers painted in pink and with inscriptions in Bulgarian and Czech "Bulgaria apologizes" to mark the USSR's 1968 intervention in Czechoslovakia. In February and March 2014, it was twice painted anonymously to show support for Kiev in the Ukraine crisis and the country's standoff with Russia.

7.Excavation of the concrete fundament fortifying the monument to the Nazi poet Josef Weinheber at Vienna's Schiller Square.

Artistic intervention by Eduard Freudmann, Chris Gangl and Tatiana Kai-Browne (Plattform for History Politics), 2012 08. Wrapping of Kriegsklotz by the "Bündnis für ein Hamburger Deserteursdenkmal", Juni 2011

The war memorial at Dammtordamm was built in 1936, designed by Richard Kuöhl. It is a rectangular block of limestone with a circumferential relief, marching in rows of four soldiers with marching packs, shouldered rifles and steel helmets, is life-size. It bears several inscriptions, including "Germany must live, even if we must die," from the poem by Heinrich Lersch. (The punk band Slime returned later in this saying "Germany must die so we can live") The society for Hamburger Monument to the deserter made an action of wrapping the monument in folio commemorating those who refuse to serve at Wermacht.

09 Barrikade – Non Govermental Control commitee, Moscow 1998 The Extra-Governmental Control Commission’s Barricade, an ephemeral monument to the 1968 student revolution, reworks the principle of the public square, using a pile of art objects to block urban movement.

10. Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the monument to the king of Italy Vittorio Emanuele II, 1970, in Milan, Italy 11. Tatzu Nishi. Untitled, 2010.

Construction of a room around the horse sculpture of Justo Barrios, president of Guatemala during the late 19th century.

12. Christian Jankowski, project “Heavy Weight History” (2013)

The German conceptual artist enlisted the help of a group of eleven professional strongmen to attempt to lift a series of historical monuments in and around Warsaw, from statues of the nineteenth century socialist activist Ludwik Waryński to Ronald Reagan.

13. Valie Export, Elongation, from project “Body Configuration” (1972-1976) 14. Standing man/women protest, Turkey, 2012

Monuments on the move 1. Monuments Coming to Life. Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman Pushkin wrote The Bronze Horseman in 1833. The author demonstrates the contradictions of public life laid bare, without attempting to artificially reconcile them in places where they are irreconcilable in reality. In The Bronze Horseman, the opposing forces are generalized with the images of Peter the Great (who is then represented as the monument of The Bronze Horseman come to life), who stands for the state power, against the everyman with his personal, private interests and troubles and who dies, crushed by monument which was hunting him around the city at night.

2. Carnivals platforms * collage of images from Nazi carnival platform and ceremony of the opening of Olympic games in Sochi.

3. A parade with a model of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919-1920) in the streets of Leningrad 4. People in Tallinn defend the Soviet war monument «Bronze Soldier» from removal, 2007 5. Memorial parks of removed Soviet monuments 6. Action of Voina group, Dick Captured by the FSB, St. Petersburg During the night of 14 June 2010, Voina painted a giant 65 m long phallus on the surface of the Liteyny drawbridge leading to the Bolshoy Dom, headquarters of the Federal Security Service in Saint Petersburg.

7. Nikolay Oleynikov, «In praise of instability or the rise and fall in Bozen», 2013 An anarcho-city-tour with a specially designed monument through the most significantly instable places in the Bozen.

Alternative Monuments 1. Sanja Ivekovic ‘Lady Rosa of Luxembourg’, 2001 Gëlle Fra (dt. Goldene Frau) ist der Kosename für das Denkmal der Erinnerung, ein Mahnmal gegen den Krieg mitten im Herz der Stadt Luxemburg. Ursprünglich sollte es an die gefallen Luxemburger Soldaten erinnern, die als Freiwillige in der französischen Armee im Ersten Weltkrieg gedient hatten. Aufgrund der folgenden Ereignisse wurde es jedoch auch zu einem Mahnmal gegen die Naziherrschaft. Heute erinnert es an alle Opfer von Kriegen.

Im Jahr 2001 errichtete die kroatische Künstlerin Sanja Ivekovic ihre „Lady Rosa of Luxemburg“ in unmittelbarer Nähe zur Gëlle Fra, was einen Sturm der Entrüstung auslöste. Während der Titel der Statue auf die deutsche Philosophin und marxistische Theoretikerin Rosa Luxemburg anspielt, ist ihre Gestalt eine exakte Nachahmung der Goldenen Frau, mit dem einzigen Unterschied, dass diese schwanger ist. Die schwangere Figur der Lady Rosa bezieht sich sowohl auf die Rolle der Frau als Gebärerin wie auch auf die sexuelle Gewalt, der sie ausgesetzt ist. Einige Leute jedoch meinten, dass die Statue der zweiten Goldenen Frau die patriotische Botschaft der ursprünglichen Frau unterminiere und sogar verzerre. Nach einer Reihe hitziger Debatten wurde Lady Rosa schließlich von ihrem Podest entfernt. /Sarah Haunert/

2. Hans Haacke, Transformation eines DDR Grenzturms

Der Künstler installierte ein Mercedes-Logo auf einem ehemaligen DDR-Grenzturm und wendete sich dabei gegen das Engagement von Industrie und Banken: „Die Freiheit wird jetzt einfach gesponsert – aus der Portokasse“ (1990).

3. Contra-File, “Denkmal für das unsichtbare Drehkreuz” Die Aktion der Gruppe Contra-File aus dem Jahr 2004 löste eine Diskussion über Formen der Kontrolle in der Stadt São Paolo aus. Die Versammlung erarbeitete die Inschrift „Programm für die Ent-Drehkreuzung des Lebens“ als symbolische, von der Gesellschaft auf verschiedene Weise appropriierte Tatsache. Das brennende Drehkreuz ist die Vervielfältigung des später von der Studentenbewegung aufgenommenen Symbols; die Bewegung demonstrierte gegen die hohen Gebühren für Aufnahmeprüfungen an der Universität von São Paolo, der größten öffentlichen Hochschule Brasiliens.

5. Der vierte Sockel, Trafalgar Square Von 1841 bis 1999 blieb der vierte Sockel in der nordwestlichen Ecke des Trafalgar Square leer.

Heute wird er für die temporäre Aufstellung skulpturaler Auftragsarbeiten verwendet.

Marc Quinns „Alison Lapper Pregnant“, 2005 Marc Quinns Skulptur „Alison Lapper Pregnant“ war die erste neue Auftragsarbeit für den vierten Sockel unter dem Ehrenschutz der Beauftragungsgruppe für den Vierten Sockel des Bürgermeisters von London. Alison Lapper ist eine von der Kritik geschätzte britische Künstlerin.

Marc Quinn beschrieb die Skulptur wie folgt: „Die Skulptur stellt Alison Lapper im achteinhalbten Monat ihrer Schwangerschaft dar. Sie besteht aus einem einzigen weißen Marmorblock und ist 3,55 Meter hoch. Auf den ersten Blick mag man denken, dass es nur sehr wenige öffentlich ausgestellte Statuen von Menschen mit körperlichen Behinderungen gibt. Allerdings befindet sich eine dieser wenigen Statuen genau auf dem Trafalgar Square: Nelson auf seiner Säule fehlt ein Arm. Ich glaube, dass die Darstellung von Alison diesem versteckten Aspekt des Trafalgar Square erneute Aufmerksamkeit verschafft. Die meisten öffentlichen Skulpturen – vor allem im Bereich Trafalgar Square und Whitehall – sind triumphale

Darstellungen des männlichen Körpers. Die Nelson-Säule ist der Inbegriff eines phallisch-männlichen Denkmals, und ich fand, dass der Platz auch etwas Weibliches haben sollte … Die Statue von Alison könnte ein neues Bild weiblichen Heldentums verkörpern.

In der Vergangenheit eroberten Helden wie Nelson die Welt da draußen. Heute scheint mir, dass Helden über ihre eigenen widrigen Umstände und die Vorurteile anderer obsiegen, und ich meine, dass Alisons Statue dies symbolisieren wird. Durch ihre Schwangerschaft wird dieses Denkmal auch zu einem Monument für die Zukunft.“

6. Stolpersteine Stolpersteine ist das Projekt des Künstlers Gunter Demnig. Mit diesen Gedenktafeln soll an das Schicksal der Menschen erinnert werden, die in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus verfolgt, ermordet, deportiert, vertrieben oder in den Suizid getrieben wurden. Die Stolpersteine sind kubische Betonsteine mit einer Kantenlänge von 96 × 96 Millimeter und einer Höhe von 100 Millimetern, auf deren Oberseite sich eine individuell beschriftete Messingplatte befindet. Sie werden in der Regel vor den letzten frei gewählten Wohnhäusern der NS-Opfer niveaugleich in das Pflaster des Gehweges eingelassen. Es gibt Stolpersteine bereits in mehreren Ländern und Hunderten Städten.

10. Skif Bratok, Action in a memory of the “Monument to revolutionary thinkers”, Moscow 2013 «Monument/obelisk to prominent thinkers and leaders of the struggle for liberation of the workers» (1918-2013) was originally converted from the stele in honor of the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty. In 2013, Stella was restored in its original form to celebrate the 400 anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. The artist brought a bunch of books organized in the order of appearance of the names of revolutionary thinkers on the destroyed monuments of the revolution at the location of the obelisk.

11. Kara Walker, A Subtlety, 2014

Artists Kara Walker describes her new public work in the old Domino Sugar factory on the river in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant.”

The work draws on the history or sugar and race and the artists used a lot of sugar to create the work.

12. Christmas Tree put on fire during clashes with police in Athens.

This action became very popular and was repeated many times at different places (2011)

Participatory Monuments 1. Helping Hands Wouter Osterholt and Elke Uitentuis walk around Istanbul all day with their junk cart with a copy of a fragment from Mehmet Aksoy’s long-debated, the “Monument to Humanity,” and ask people whether they could make a plaster cast mold of their hands.

Aksoy’s sculpture was built in the eastern province of Kars and dedicated to TurkishArmenian friendship. Yet, during January’s visit to the area, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointed to the 35-meter-tall “Monument to Humanity,” called it “freakish” and demanded its removal. Kars’ municipal assembly promptly agree to tear down the monument, saying it had been illegally erected in a protected area.

2. Gramsci Monument by Thomas Hirschhorn Gramsci Monument is the fourth and last in Hirschhorn’s series of “monuments” dedicated to major writers and thinkers, which he initiated in 1999 with Spinoza Monument (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), followed by Deleuze Monument (Avignon, France, 2000) and Bataille Monument (Kassel, Germany, 2002). This fourth monument pays tribute to the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), famous for his volume of Prison Notebooks(1926–1937). Gramsci Monument is based on Hirschhorn’s will “to establish a definition of monument, to provoke encounters, to create an event, and to think Gramsci today.”

Constructed by residents of Forest Houses, the artwork takes the form of an outdoor structure comprised of numerous pavilions. The pavilions include an exhibition space with historical photographs from the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci in Rome, personal objects that belonged to the philosopher from Casa Museo di Antonio Gramsci in Ghilarza, Italy, and a library holding 500 books by (and about) Gramsci loaned by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in New York. Other pavilions include a stage platform, a workshop area, an Internet corner, a lounge, and the Gramsci Bar—all of which are overseen by local residents.

3. Monument to Rebellion 1967.

While living in Detroit, Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas, discovered an intriguing story about one of the city’s public monument. Residents see the abstract sculpture as a commemoration of a violent massacre, the Detroit Rebellion of 1967 - a key moment in the history of the civil rights movement.

In their research the artists learned that in fact the sculpture has nothing to do with the Rebellion; instead it was commissioned by the city in the 1970s for the public park rather to cover up, smooth over, and erase memory of the tragedy. So it became a story of a political phantasy of an “empty vessel” of modernist appearance, ready to embrace any content.

4. Alfedo Jaar LIGHTS IN THE CITY, 1999 In Canada Alfredo Jaar completed a project referred to as Lights in the City, in 1999. This is a historic landmark which had burnt around five times before Jaar completed this project.

There were approximately a hundred thousand watts of red lights installed within the Copula so that when a button is mashed the copula lights up with a red color inside of it very brightly so that it can be seen all around the city of Montreal.

Detonating devices have been placed in multiple places at homeless shelters that are located within five hundred yards of the Cupola. Each time a homeless individual enters one of these areas they are free to push the buttons located within these areas so that the Cupola will light up inside with bright red colors.

5. Monument against Fascism, Hamburg-Harburg, Germany 1986 Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz We invite the citizens of Harburg, and visitors to the town, to add their names here next to ours. In doing so we commit ourselves to remain vigilant. As more and more names cover this 12-metre tall lead column, it will gradually be lowered into the ground. One day it will have disappeared completely, and the site of the Harburg Monument against Fascism will be empty. In the end it is only we ourselves who can stand up against injustice.

6. Maidan’s Christmas tree, 2014

The Christmas tree at Maidan (main square) in Kiev was burned and its metal structure became the place for people’s expressions.

Capitalist TIME CAPSULE Time Capsule is not just a wireless network device sold by Apple – it is much bigger and older idea.

1. Andy Warhol’s time capsule Artist used it collecting all possible stuff, left-overs from his everyday life and pack them in boxes. It celebrates the typical capitalist connections to the future – we need collect and preserve and claim a value.

2. Capitalist time capsule 3. Capitalist time capsule 4. The ceremony of laying of corporate time capsule by jointventure corporation in Russia

Communists time capsule The communist time capsule is a key-stone of the whole idea of monuments. The communist tradition has developed its own cannon of time capsule – this was considered as a device for delivering messages for future generations.

But Soviet people were sure that they need to address to completely new human beings – the people who will live in Communism and they want to tell how much they love them and how much they were eager to sacrifice their life in a proud struggle to secure the life of future generation.

Here we need to quote one of this important documents of memory politics in Soviet Union. Written in 1968 and sealed into a time capsule, it was placed into the fundament for the monument to the 50 Year Anniversary of the Komsomol on Stachek Prospect in Leningrad. It appeals to the coming generation of youths who were supposed to unearth this capsule in 2018: …Do not mourn the last century's millions of fallen heroes.

Their bravery and heroic deeds were full of great meaning.

Show us that these heroic deeds were not in vain. We believe in you.

We carry the banner of their heroism into the troublesome, promising world in our work and our studies.

We carry their hope in our hearts, remembering that our times are linked, and that we are responsible.

Through the fifty years that connect us, we say: May your love be hot, May your songs be glad May your recognitions be great May your characters be brave May the world you share be beautiful.

May all your achievements belong to the human brotherhood of the Earth.

We do not pity ourselves because we know: you will be better than us.

We do not envy you.

Please don't envy us…

1-3. The examples of Soviet time capsules