Anti-monumentalism

Anti-monumental works usually address the more obscure and distressing parts of history and wrongful ideologies. Whereas traditional monuments tend to glorify these specific events, people and periods of history.[3]

The form presented by anti-monumentalism fundamentally opposes the traditional monument. This is notable in terms of their conception, utilisation, materials used, duration, size, etc. It is fitting for their form to be contradicting conventional monuments as they convey troubling issues.[3] Often, an element of traditional monumentalism is present in order to demonstrate the stark contrast of the message coming from the anti-monument, such as the empty traditional monument pedestal by Do-Ho-Suh.[8]

In Counter-monuments: the anti-monumental and the dialogic the authors write:

"Possibly the most notable and most common feature of anti-monumentality is its opposition to conventional monumental form and the employment of alternative, contrasting design techniques, materials and duration. Fundamental inversions also include voids instead of solids, absence instead of presence (as with the Aschrott Fountain and Harburg’s disappearing Monument against Fascism), dark rather than light tones, and an emphasis on the horizontal rather than the vertical. Forms may be sunken rather than elevated (as in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial), shifted off-axis, or dispersed or fragmented rather than unified in a single, orderly composition at a single location..."[3]

Traditional monuments are portrayed in a glorified manner and are very apparent in the space they are in. Anti-monumentalism is discreet in nature, it is not obvious to the eye and is presented nonchalantly in everyday journeys along the area it is in.[3] Some anti-monuments are entirely invisible to the eye, which in itself is part of the message that the anti-monument is attempting to convey.

Anti-monumentalism questions, surprises and engages the visitor instead putting up distance, insisting on sobriety and respect from the spectator such as what conventional works do.[3]

The meaning of traditional works is usually instructive and coherent. In contrast, anti-monumentalism portrays abstract meanings and are generally unclear in their response. Their interpretation would be reliant on the visitors' common understandings and additional details provided by signs.[3]

Jochen Gerz's work 2146 Stones (1993),[14] is considered to be one of the first examples of anti-monumentalism. Referred to as the 'Invisible Monument', this anti-monument exists to highlight the crimes against Jewish people committed by the Nazis and is situated in the eponymous Platz des Unsichtbaren Mahnmals (English: Place of the Invisible Memorial) in Saarbrücken, Germany. It consists of around 8000 paving stones with the names of Jewish cemeteries engraved on the underside of the stones.[14]

Do-Ho Suh's Public Figures (1998),[15] brings attention to the purpose of monuments and statues.[16] The artists has created a traditional monument, that is constructed with hundreds of miniature figures, both male and female, holding up an empty pedestal.[16] Do-Ho Suh's traditional monument, is 'turned upside down' by drawing attention to the idea that the focus should not be on top of the pedestal, but instead to the masses below.[17]

Nicholas Galanin's Shadow on the Land (2020) is an excavation in the form of the shadow cast by the monument of Captain Cook in Sydney, Australia. The purpose of this anti-monument was to highlight the dark side of Cook's colonial enterprises and shed light onto the indigenous inhabitants who suffered upon Cook's arrival. The excavation could be interpreted as either a past or future burial of the long-standing monument which still serves to praise the heroics of colonialism.[18][19][7]

Vietnam War Memorial by Maya Lin, 1982, Washington D.C.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was designed by Maya Lin and dedicated in 1982. Lin, an architect and graduate of Yale University, won the competition for the design at the age of 21. It consists of large chevron shaped, polished black granite walls descending into the landscape. It is inscribed with the names of members of the U.S. armed forces who died in the Vietnam War. Visitors are invited to make a rubbing of the names of loved ones.[20] It was a controversial design at the time of its dedication. Senator Jim Webb expressed shock: “I never in my wildest dreams imagined such a nihilistic slab of stone.”[21] James Watt, secretary of the interior under President Ronald Reagan, initially refused to issue a building permit for the memorial due to the public outcry about the design.[22]

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, despite its official title, works as an anti-monument as it is essentially conceptual art in its minimalism. Catesby Leigh writes in her book Anti-Monument: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Its Legacy that it is a "hyper-reductionist strand of modernist art that takes abstraction to an extreme"[23] It is also without ornament, nor explanation. It inverts monumentality in its sunken-ness. The non-representational form of the work allows for multiple interpretations, and that it is "dialogical" in nature as it contrasts to the prevalent forms of memorialization in D.C.[3]