Antimonuments: Between Memory and Resistance

Abstract

The essay presents a reflection upon the “antimonuments” phenomena that emerged at the end of the twentieth century as a way of dealing through art with State violence, as in the case of Nazism and the Latin American dictatorships. The text begins with an explanation of the mnemotechnics, that is, the old “art of memory”, that had Simonides of Ceos as its mythic father. It goes on presenting the contemporary “art of memory” under the sign of “antimonuments”. The article proposes to think of a “new art of memory” based on the gesture of anti-monuments. The study shows and discusses the works of, among other artists, Jochen Gerz, Horst Hoheisel, Andreas Knitz, Marcelo Brodsky and Fulvia Molina.

Keywords

• Antimonuments
• Art of memory
• Mnemotechnics
• Art and violence