{"id":1983,"date":"2016-12-02T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T05:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2018-09-13T14:38:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:38:32","slug":"watlington-wrapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/2016\/12\/02\/watlington-wrapped\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrapped in Tin Foil: A Report from the Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Still<\/a>
Still from Scene for a New Heritage (2004-2006). \u00a9 David Maljkovi\u0107. Image courtesy Metro Pictures, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I relate to David Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s (b. 1973 Yugoslavia, present day Croatia) characters in Scene for a New Heritage <\/em>(2004-2006), a video trilogy set in the year 2045 about young men\u2014\u201cheritage-seekers\u201d\u2014on a road trip to Vojin Baki\u0107\u2019s 1981 Monument to the Partisans <\/em>at Petrova Gora. I, too, grew up surrounded by monuments to a repudiated regime\u2014in the Confederate capital\u2014troubled and confused by their presence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like the Confederate monuments, the spomenik <\/em>(monuments) represent contested ideologies, which raises questions about their preservation\u2014many of them have been destroyed, and those that remain are nearly indestructible.[1]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Unlike the Confederate monuments, however, they are non-representational. To many non-locals (and in Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s film, to citizens of the future) their aesthetic power and feats of engineering overshadow their ideological underpinnings\u2014Petrova Gora<\/em> was built in praise of socialism at a site of fascist resistance.[2]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a>
Still from Scene for a New Heritage (2004-2006). Image courtesy Metro Pictures, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inspired by such films, I traveled to the Balkans\u2014the former Yugoslav territories\u2014to think about problems presented by monuments to repudiated regimes in a new context and through film.[3]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Considering non-representational monuments through their audiovisual dissemination allowed me to address issues beyond the preserve\/dismantle binary that drove much debate surrounding the Confederate counterpart by way of their visual and discursive cultural dissemination.<\/p>\n

While there, I ended up learning as much about methodologies for cross-cultural research as I did about films and monuments. The Western reception of films such as Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s made clear how artists from marginalized regions are burdened with the task of representing their nation and are often pressured by institutions to make work that translates cross-culturally. Their work is especially tokenized when it reinforces the \u201cother\u201d-ness of its author.[4]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Scene for a New Heritage<\/em> gained popularity in the West\u2014MoMA named a 2015 show Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection <\/em>after the work, which is in their collection. Its reception amongst an audience for whom many historical references remain undetected speaks volumes to the broader themes the film evokes about cultural memory. The Western viewer\u2019s experience of confusion is mirrored by heritage-seekers\u2019, who ask when faced with the monument, \u201cWhat is this except that it\u2019s big and build [sic<\/em>] in a strange place?\u201d Another replies, \u201cI think it carries a strong message.\u201d But, \u201cIf it were strong, we would see it!\u201d While the trilogy indeed considers the slippage of historical facts, the monument\u2019s history is still well known to Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s local audience\u2014many of whom were bused to Petrova Gora as schoolchildren. Western critics tend to view the monument with the same stupor as the heritage-seekers. After meeting with monument scholars from the region, it was clear that the incorrect Western perception of Baki\u0107\u2019s monument via Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s trilogy as abstract, abandoned, and apolitical necessitated revision.[5]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

For instance, critic Nicola Bozzi wrote of the heritage-seekers\u2019 soccer games at the site, \u201cThe ideological space of the spomenik <\/em>is reclaimed by little crowds of people that casually hang out around it, turning it into a public area for informal socialization.” Bozzi\u2019s interpretation: \u201cAmnesia accomplished.\u201d[6]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Yet the monument\u2019s project statement reveals that it was actually intended as a site for casual socialization and leisure, in addition to education and commemoration. Today, many spomenik <\/em>frequently host barbecues. Petrova Gora<\/em> sought to pass down memory by tapping into personal imagination and emotion, which new generations would engage with their bodies and intuitions\u2014it intended leisure as a non-didactic means of commemoration, rather than as a means to forgetting.[7]<\/span><\/span><\/a> The spomenik <\/em>do not declare what they commemorate in a literal way. Instead, they prompt intrigue and participatory engagement. And, while Maljkovi\u0107 considered what it might be like if the political history of such monuments were forgotten, full amnesia has yet to be accomplished.<\/p>\n

\"screen-shot-2016-11-29-at-1-30-27-pm\"<\/a>
Still from Scene for a New Heritage (2004-2006). Image courtesy Metro Pictures, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The derelict futurism of abandoned socialist architecture has long inspired Western mythologization by way of the camera. Jan Kempenaers (b. 1968 Belgium) helped to make the spomenik<\/em> internationally known through a 2009 photo book.[8]<\/span><\/span><\/a> But the project commits the sin of what Jamie Rann calls post-communist ruin porn\u2014\u201cthe marriage of trendy post-industrial \u2018ruin porn\u2019 with the ongoing \u2018othering\u2019 of\u2026 Eastern Europe.\u201d[9]<\/span><\/span><\/a> The mythologizing reception of the trilogy is also implicated in this. Maljkovi\u0107 is among the most internationally well-known living artists from the region\u2014some locals speculate that this is because he capitalized on the undeniable pleasure that accompanies ogling at socialist ruins.[10]<\/span><\/span><\/a> But the film still mocks this problematic impulse; the tin-foil wrapping of the heritage seekers\u2019 car caricatures Petrova Gora\u2019s <\/em>aluminum fa\u00e7ade, both na\u00efvely desperate to convince viewers that they are futuristic.<\/p>\n

I am clearly not the first Western scholar to be captivated by the monuments\u2019 allure. Whether intentional or not, Maljkovi\u0107 is wise to exploit the problematic gaze these amazing structures solicit to critical ends\u2014a gaze I am guilty of initially committing. It is a discomforting realization, but rather than suppress such discomfort, I ask myself how I can, like Maljkovi\u0107, use such allure to critical ends as I write. I proceed to grapple with how one addresses cross-cultural scholarship without reinforcing difference. For these are not merely formally astonishing feats of engineering; they are ripe objects for investigation.<\/p>\n

Emily Watlington<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

[1]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Spomneik<\/em> means monument in Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, and Bosnian. It has, confusingly, been adopted by the English-speaking world to refer to the series of non-representational monuments built during the Yugoslav time at World War II sites. This is because Jan Kempenaers\u2019s photo book depicting them was titled Spomenik.<\/em><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Sanja Horvatin\u010di\u0107 has remarked that many of these monuments had to scale their ambitions for lack of funding, reflecting the gap between ideology and economic reality in the socialist time. Sanja Horvatin\u010di\u0107, “Monument, Territory, and the Mediation of War Memory in Socialist Yugoslavia,”\u00a0Zivot Umjetnosti<\/em>\u00a096, (June 2015).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/span><\/a> I spent the summer of 2016 based in Zagreb, Croatia, thanks to the Donis A. Dondis Travel Fellowship from my Alma Mater, <\/em>Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The films were my entry to the discourse in the region.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/span><\/span><\/a> This is not the fault of the artists, who are already afforded so few opportunities to get ahead, but rather the of demands that the system places upon them. For a consideration of the tokenization of identity politics work, see: bell hooks, Art on My Mind: Visual Politics<\/em>. (New York: New Press, 1995).<\/p>\n

[5]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Much of the misconception that the monuments are abandoned, without narrative, and apolitical derived not only from their nonrepresentational forms, but also from the limited availability of scholarship or primary sources in English. <\/em>Further, shortly after the war, few local scholars were tackling this history. I am thankful to many monuments scholars, who spoke to me about their research (in English), especially to Sanja Horvatin\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Nicola Bozzi,”Re-imagining Utopian Futures.” Domus<\/em> (January 9, 2013).<\/p>\n

[7]<\/span><\/span><\/a> The monument did originally house an educational exhibition inside, but it was primarily a territory marker. \u201cThis space is not a park, although it may resemble one and may be used that way,\u201d it reads. \u201cIt leads to the monument and serves it in the same way as the monument needs it\u2014to be a social junction and a place of repose, and not merely a symbol.\u201d Project statement translation from Sanja Horvatin\u010di\u0107, “Monument, Territory, and the Mediation of War Memory in Socialist Yugoslavia,”\u00a0Zivot Umjetnosti<\/em>\u00a096, (June 2015): 32.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Jan Kempenaers and Willem Jan Neutelings. Spomenik #1-26<\/em>. (Amsterdam: Roma Publications, 2010).<\/p>\n

[9]<\/span><\/span><\/a> Jamie Rann,”Beauty and the East: Allure and Exploitation in Post-Soviet Ruin Photography,”\u00a0The Calvert Journal<\/em>; The genre works like porn to both worship and shame their reduced and aestheticized subjects.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/span><\/span><\/a> If this is the case, the fault is not the artist\u2019s, but rather that of the system which required this of an artist to be recognized. If Maljkovi\u0107 exploited this intentionally, I applaud him for gaining an edge and remaining critical in a corrupt system that one cannot work outside of.<\/p>\n

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I relate to David Maljkovi\u0107\u2019s (b. 1973 Yugoslavia, present day Croatia) characters in Scene for a New Heritage (2004-2006), a video trilogy set in the year 2045 about young men\u2014\u201cheritage-seekers\u201d\u2014on a road trip to Vojin Baki\u0107\u2019s 1981 Monument to the Partisans at Petrova Gora. I, too, grew up surrounded by monuments to a repudiated regime\u2014in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5736,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/5736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}