Naslov
Echoes of Socialist Modernism in Croatian Public Monuments of the ‘90s and 2000s

Autori
Kesić, Božo

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
Modernist Sculpture and Culture: Historiographical Approaches and Critical Analyses

Mjesto i datum
Split, Hrvatska, 26.10.2017. - 27.10.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
monuments ; socialism ; Croatia ; 80s ; 90s

Sažetak
The monument question has been considered a particularly delicate one in Croatian art and public spheres at least since the end of the Second World War. This complex issue has involved considerations and attitudes in relation to aesthetics, meaning and reception of public monuments, concerning both the critics and the community. The latter is quite understandable as ideological changes have on numerous occasions affected people’s relationship towards monuments representing certain ideologies and individuals, in some cases leading to their defacement or complete destruction. This further expands on W.J.T. Mitchell’s idea that no visual medium is purely “visual”, as its reception depends on their wider, non-visual context. In terms of public monuments, the second Yugoslav period in Croatia (between the World War II and the Homeland War, i.e. Croatian War of Independence in the ‘90s) generally produced two very different sculptural aesthetics. In short, it could be said that the dominant one was based on the foundations of socialist realism, as in excessively dramatic or oversized figurative scenes and motifs often dedicated to known and unknown partisan heroes or war casualties. On the other hand, the socialist modernist aesthetic relied heavily on symbolism (and the use of “clear-cut”, abstract visual language) and has been described in most cases as being more balanced in terms of formal-aesthetic qualities. However, the difference meant almost nothing as hostility towards Yugoslav monuments increased significantly during and immediately after the Homeland War, and any public monument associated with the former federation, regardless of its individual qualities, was (and unfortunately still is) facing threat as “unwanted heritage” (A. Riegl). Ironically, in comparison to their immediate historical context, the ‘90s in Croatia failed to yield any significant changes in terms of sculptural language. Instead, there was a recurrence of pre- existing patterns that were put into function of signifying the nation of Croatia and the new societal and political order. The public monuments in question were mostly austere, figurative sculptures underlined with mass- appealing, “understandable” narrative. In a sense, the consequent trend of “nationalist monumentalism” existing both in Croatian and in Yugoslav contexts benefited from the accessibility and educational potential of the plastic medium in order to create and maintain perception of great national histories (Nietzsche’s concept of Monumental History). However, despite sharing many similarities with their Yugoslavian counterparts, most Croatian public monuments erected after the Homeland War were downgraded both in size and in quality, embodying, to paraphrase Ive Šimat Banov, the “revival of socialist realism, however, without fundamental craftsmanship and plastic credibility of the earlier examples”. On the opposite side of the uninterrupted art historical tradition reflected in production of sculptural themes such as statesmen statues, graphic war- themed monuments and memorials, a type of public monuments drawing from Yugoslav socialist modernist heritage (re)appeared in Croatia towards the end of the ‘90s onwards. Despite the remark that the modernist concept of abstract, symbolic monumental form had reached its peak and consequent exhaustion in the ‘80s with the introduction of counter-monuments and anti- monuments, alongside its inability to resist commercialisation of the spaces of memory (Lj. Kolešnik), its re-emergence on the geography of Croatia may have been a needed one in order to restore a balance disturbed by the imposed sculptural conservativism and offer a modern take on portraying metaphysical values such as freedom, justice and sacrifice, more so because the categories of counter-monuments or anti-monuments were scarce and barely existent in the post-war Croatia (i.e. Wall of Pain in Zagreb). Thus, the recovering of the socialist modernist sculptural legacy and its various manifestations aided in tempering the influence of wide-spread traditionalism and formed a healing bridge towards postmodern monument production in Croatia.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
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