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DOI Artikel:András, Edit: Public monuments in changing societies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31178#0048
how to adapt, how to utilize the miütia of suddeniy
unemployed statues, the losers and social outcasts
of the political transformation. Among the many
proposais was their own suggestion of a Lenin statue
left dangling from a crâne in the air, and an oil paint-
ing, jL?%A TfAA i? ThA. I would argue that, despite the
artists' claim to stand up as champions and saviours
of the Soviet past,^ what they really did was a con-
version of the socialist icons into commercial goods,
mere products of the capitaüst consumer culture. In
this transformation, the past became a mere thing,
a fetishized trash similar to other commodities.
However, I would not interpret this attitude as a
rétrospective critic of the totalitarian régime either,
even less as the critic of capitaüst commodity culture,
but rather as being in complété aügnment with the
mainstream Western mind-set of the early nineties
in "beating a dead horše when iťs down" so to say.
Just a few years after the collapse of the sociaüst
systém, the message of the falüng monuments was
quite obvious; that is, the real victory holder was
the West, celebrating the collective dismantüng of
the Symbols of its Cold War ideological rival on the
front-pages of newspapers and on the covers of
magazines.' No doubt, Komar and Melamid were
well aware of the market value in the West of top-
püng communist icons. Accordingly, they provided
satisfaction and amusement for Western audiences
as a kind of effective shortcut to getting back their
attention, which had threatened of being lost by the
end of the Cold War. At the same time, irony was
wildly used in their project as a sort of "backtalk"
fuelled by the desire to také mental revenge'^ on the
once so powerful ofňcial culture, an attitude plainly in
correspondence with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Symptoms. Yet, aspects of memory work, or even
the need for working through the Sociaüst past, were
not reaüy proposed in this early rehection.
In Russia, one could find a strong craving for
consumption and material culture after the long
course of collectivist asceticism. In the climate
ERLANGER, S.: Mocking Sociaüst Reaüsm to Save It. In:
TA Níw YA TA?&f, 3 August 1993. See also BOIME, A.:
Perestroika and the Destabiüzation of the Soviet Monuments.
In: Mn-, 1993, Nos. 2-3, p. 211-226.
' BOIME 1993 (see in note 16).
of "everything is for sale", this attitude resonated
greatly. Lenin and other sociaüst Symbols quickly
became consumerist products, mixed side-by-side
with the icons of consumerist capitaüsm. Undergo-
ing "Mickeymousation" and "Macdonaldization"
of the éléments of Soviet officiai culture seemingly
became very populär. Actually, the attitude of high
art and low art is far from being as different as one
might expect. The very same phenomenon towards
the remains of the past has been captured in the
suppües of Street vendors of the Arbat in Moscow,
as well as in the caricatures of posh magazines, üke
TA? NA* WfA?f.
The once so important and so obvious context
of these monuments seems to have been totally ob-
scured, or better yet, rubbed out in the interprétation
of British artist, Liane Lang JFig. ß], as if the sociaüst
past were a mere hction, which provided a ready-
made stage design for her seductive performances.
And again, the attitude of high art and low art is far
from being as different as one might expect. The
inhabitants of the Hungarian Statue Park were used
for commercial advertisements in local hands too.
o/ A<? and yßr/A
which together form the foundation of ro/ypT-
yf ArAA,''' relying on Susan Buck
Morse's typology, could no longer be divided, as they
had been in their pre-history in the thirties. Back
then, King Kong represented the escapist stratégy
of the entertainment industry of capitaüsm during
the Great Depression, while the goüath-size Lenin
statue on top of the never-built Palace of Soviets in
Moscow represented the forced ecstasy of building
sociaüsm in the time of the purges and show trials
in Staünist Russia. Referring again to Buck Morse,
'T/K zw<%%Ay yf A?yy&r <%?"<? ^AAA?%/ ^4 M^hZAAy
A/^<?<?% ADV yMr A A AZA A A
Getting doser to the interprétation of our case,
we could greatly utiüze MitchelPs metaphor, the
"KAy Xoyy .. A AAy yf A<? %-AA
JwA/f&s*... ArAw^TAA
's ERLANGER 1993 (see m note 16).
^ BUCK MORSE 2002 (see in note 8), p. 176.
Ibidem.
42
unemployed statues, the losers and social outcasts
of the political transformation. Among the many
proposais was their own suggestion of a Lenin statue
left dangling from a crâne in the air, and an oil paint-
ing, jL?%A TfAA i? ThA. I would argue that, despite the
artists' claim to stand up as champions and saviours
of the Soviet past,^ what they really did was a con-
version of the socialist icons into commercial goods,
mere products of the capitaüst consumer culture. In
this transformation, the past became a mere thing,
a fetishized trash similar to other commodities.
However, I would not interpret this attitude as a
rétrospective critic of the totalitarian régime either,
even less as the critic of capitaüst commodity culture,
but rather as being in complété aügnment with the
mainstream Western mind-set of the early nineties
in "beating a dead horše when iťs down" so to say.
Just a few years after the collapse of the sociaüst
systém, the message of the falüng monuments was
quite obvious; that is, the real victory holder was
the West, celebrating the collective dismantüng of
the Symbols of its Cold War ideological rival on the
front-pages of newspapers and on the covers of
magazines.' No doubt, Komar and Melamid were
well aware of the market value in the West of top-
püng communist icons. Accordingly, they provided
satisfaction and amusement for Western audiences
as a kind of effective shortcut to getting back their
attention, which had threatened of being lost by the
end of the Cold War. At the same time, irony was
wildly used in their project as a sort of "backtalk"
fuelled by the desire to také mental revenge'^ on the
once so powerful ofňcial culture, an attitude plainly in
correspondence with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Symptoms. Yet, aspects of memory work, or even
the need for working through the Sociaüst past, were
not reaüy proposed in this early rehection.
In Russia, one could find a strong craving for
consumption and material culture after the long
course of collectivist asceticism. In the climate
ERLANGER, S.: Mocking Sociaüst Reaüsm to Save It. In:
TA Níw YA TA?&f, 3 August 1993. See also BOIME, A.:
Perestroika and the Destabiüzation of the Soviet Monuments.
In: Mn-, 1993, Nos. 2-3, p. 211-226.
' BOIME 1993 (see in note 16).
of "everything is for sale", this attitude resonated
greatly. Lenin and other sociaüst Symbols quickly
became consumerist products, mixed side-by-side
with the icons of consumerist capitaüsm. Undergo-
ing "Mickeymousation" and "Macdonaldization"
of the éléments of Soviet officiai culture seemingly
became very populär. Actually, the attitude of high
art and low art is far from being as different as one
might expect. The very same phenomenon towards
the remains of the past has been captured in the
suppües of Street vendors of the Arbat in Moscow,
as well as in the caricatures of posh magazines, üke
TA? NA* WfA?f.
The once so important and so obvious context
of these monuments seems to have been totally ob-
scured, or better yet, rubbed out in the interprétation
of British artist, Liane Lang JFig. ß], as if the sociaüst
past were a mere hction, which provided a ready-
made stage design for her seductive performances.
And again, the attitude of high art and low art is far
from being as different as one might expect. The
inhabitants of the Hungarian Statue Park were used
for commercial advertisements in local hands too.
o/ A<? and yßr/A
which together form the foundation of ro/ypT-
yf ArAA,''' relying on Susan Buck
Morse's typology, could no longer be divided, as they
had been in their pre-history in the thirties. Back
then, King Kong represented the escapist stratégy
of the entertainment industry of capitaüsm during
the Great Depression, while the goüath-size Lenin
statue on top of the never-built Palace of Soviets in
Moscow represented the forced ecstasy of building
sociaüsm in the time of the purges and show trials
in Staünist Russia. Referring again to Buck Morse,
'T/K zw<%%Ay yf A?yy&r <%?"<? ^AAA?%/ ^4 M^hZAAy
A/^<?<?% ADV yMr A A AZA A A
Getting doser to the interprétation of our case,
we could greatly utiüze MitchelPs metaphor, the
"KAy Xoyy .. A AAy yf A<? %-AA
JwA/f&s*... ArAw^TAA
's ERLANGER 1993 (see m note 16).
^ BUCK MORSE 2002 (see in note 8), p. 176.
Ibidem.
42