Is a New Monumentality Possible Today? Documents of an Artistic Experience of Chto Delat Collective

Abstract

In May and June of 2014, Russian multidisciplinary collective Chto Delat came up with a public project that took the form of a festival in the city center of Vienna. It involved many participants: scholars and performance collectives, musicians and artists, local activists, and the general public were involved in the process of rethinking monumentality today. The project Face to Face with the Monument was inspired by the Soviet War Memorial on Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna. This canonical example of Stalinist monumental art, erected immediately after the end of the war, is believed to be still capable of stimulating critical discussion regarding the significance of monument politics and the forms that the commemoration of important historical events can take on today.

Key Words:

• Politics of Memory
• Antifascism
• Monumentality