Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (43.2010)

7. E2A? 200^. PA/c; Co^r^jy o/ Eř

called New Europe confronted harsh reality: the
newly-launched predatory capitalism carried heavy
economical, hnancial and social burdens, pardy as
the leftovers of the previous decades. Heading to

'' Deimantas Narkevičius in Conversation with Krzysz-
tof Košciuczuk. In: PPÆ* HrEFw, AP. 7. Eds. M.
ZIOEKOWSKA - A. LEŠNIAK. Lodz 2008, p. 37.

the future, the socialist past was soon forgotten,
and the region sank into collective amnesia. The
memory work, to which memorials and monuments
are touchstones, got started just a couple of years ago
and is booming nowadays region-wide. Ardsts are
the advocates who demand the return of memory
and an opening up of the public space for discus-
sion, arguing that the unassimilated past haunts us.
Deimantas Narkevičius, in his work A
(dwE/ry (2004), relies on the observadon that both
the construcdon of monuments and their demolidon
hâve the same purpose, as monuments are essendal
to social self-esteem and the idendty of a community.
He reverses the process of the demolidon of a huge
statue of Lenin in Vilnius, and converts it into scenes
of erecting one. In the course of shedding light on
the taboo issue of the socialist past, he pushes the
memory machinery to get into modon. Narkevičius
contemplâtes the distinction between mere polidcal
relies to be forgotten or destroyed and those arte-
facts which quaiify as art and should, therefore, be
savedV Craving for an answer, he revisits the art-
making process of Karl Marx's giant head still on
display, today in Chemnitz, then Karl Marx Stadt,
using ofňcial propaganda footage in his video TA?
HK4 (2007). His work is a close encounter with the
sculptor, trapped in a dme of worshipping polidcal
and ideological leaders. His original intention was to
work with the "exisdng context" of the post-socialist
public space and to move the head from Chemnitz
to the Münster Sculpture Show. As he explained,
it A? ApLmf o/' Etybn?/
As his act was not approved by the authori-
ties, he adjusted his focus to video making.
Actualiy, a few years earlier a Hungarian artistic
duo named Little Warsaw had a similar idea and even
realized it. Their original plan was to collect aban-
doned pedestals and to assemble them into a memo-
rial commemorating lost monuments. In the next
phase of their project, endded [Fig. 4], they
wished to elaboráte the issue of speeihe, ideologically
charged sites. Their hrst target was the very place of
the already mentioned designated site of the Palace
of Soviets, a past site of the demolished orthodox
^ Ibidem, p. 36.

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