October 26, 2015

Ukraine sculptor transforms a statue of Lenin into Darth Vader.

"I wish to save the monuments of history. I’m trying to clean up the operating system and keep them on the hard drive of memory."

Said Alexander Milov, who shouldn't be considered a vandal, since his transformation preserves the statute, which was slated to be removed after the Ukrainian parliament passed a "de-Communisation" law.
"We are gathering all these statues – like Lenin – and we would like to make a park of forlorn heroes of the epoch,” says Milov. “I want to take the statues out of the central squares of cities and put them in a different place like Disneyland, where they can be visited. It seems to me that if these statues are destroyed, people coming after us will have no possibility to make conclusions for themselves as to whether people needed them or not."
That would be like Grutas Park in Lithuania, which we talked about here and here last winter. But Milov prefers to keep the statues where they are and to "turn them into characters from Soviet cartoons."

As for the Darth Vader Lenin: "I wanted to make a symbol of American pop culture which appears to be more durable than the Soviet ideal." Interestingly, aptly, he put a Wi-Fi router in its head.

By the way, in the second of the 2 linked posts from last winter, we talked about the controversy about whether some aesthetically pleasing statues on The Green Bridge (in Vilnius, Lithuania) should be relocated to Grutas Park. I expressed concern about moving high-quality sculpture that "was designed for a particular site" because it "is partly destroyed when it is moved, even though it is otherwise preserved," and I asked: "If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"

The bridge sculptures were removed this past July, to be replaced by flowers.

15 comments:

Russ said...

Why do stories like this never come with useful pictures?

Gahrie said...

"If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"


It depends on he historical importance of what is being destroyed, and the motivations of those destroying it. I would prefer to see the statues preserved in a museum setting rather than destroyed.

Superficially, there is little difference between this and what ISIS is doing to historical sites. However the historical importance and motivation make a huge difference.

Known Unknown said...

"Why do stories like this never come with useful pictures?"

Yeah. WTF? Usually, it's a newspaper's online version that doesn't supply pictures, but the BBC?

David said...

"what should they do?"

Bury them in some remote place, where they won't be found for 3000 years.

William said...

I can see the point of blowing up the swastika over the stadium, but I wouldn't want all available prints of Lani Riefenstahl's movies burnt......I presume some of the artists working in the employ of Mussolini and Hitler had some merit. Some discretion should be used in dismantling their monuments. And if so with Hitler, why not with Stalin. Don't go all Cromwell with objects that previous generations revered. Even if they endure as monuments to men's past stupidity they have validity. Perhaps especially so.

Matt said...

"If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"

Are these statues artistically good, even in the context of socialist realism? I can't escape the conclusion that they aren't. The people are stiff and the subject-matter is a cliche. Some statues belong in the junkyard.

Known Unknown said...

I guess I don't understand the desire to erase history.

rehajm said...

Are we sure it isn't an MIT hack to coincide with the new Star Wars movie?

It's been done with John Harvard and the Halo 3 release.

Thorley Winston said...

"If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"

Auction them off to the highest bidder. Let the people who think that they’re “artistically good” put their money where their mouths/keyboards are to buy and remove the pieces and the people who wish to “reject [them] completely” can rid themselves of them and make a profit in the process. Win-win.

tim in vermont said...

These problems are hard when it is a symbol of communism, which has caused the deaths of scores of millions, famine, starvation, cannibalism, but after all, represents the highest aspirations of mankind.

If it was a sculpture of a confederate flag, they would have a rock crusher on site and would be making gravel for driveways out of it already.

gerry said...

"If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"

Well, I suggest you blow them up, just as those great humanitarians, the Russian Communists, blew up stuff they thought represented bad memories. Destroying memories of "wonderful" Communism is a good thing, by the way.

Achilles said...

Lenin killed and enslaved far more people than the confederates.

Drago said...

Achilles: "Lenin killed and enslaved far more people than the confederates."

Any Leftist: Yeah, but in a good way...

Smilin' Jack said...

Ukraine sculptor transforms a statue of Lenin into Darth Vader.
"I wish to save the monuments of history. I’m trying to clean up the operating system and keep them on the hard drive of memory."


OK, this guy makes me think maybe Lenin wasn't so bad.

jaydub said...

"I expressed concern about moving high-quality sculpture that 'was designed for a particular site' because it 'is partly destroyed when it is moved, even though it is otherwise preserved,' and I asked: 'If something is artistically good, but a remnant of an earlier time that the people who control the place now wish to reject completely, what should they do?"

It wasn't designed for a particular site, it was designed for a particular purpose, that being propaganda in the furtherance of tyranny. The site just facilitated the placement of the propaganda by the tyrant, and it was there to provide a daily reminder to the citizenry of the power of the soviet regime. Visit Budapest's Memento Park, where many soviet era propaganda statues in Hungary were placed after Hungary's liberation, which is a museum of propaganda statues similar to Grūtas Park. Those statues weren't placed there by "the people who control the place," the park was the result of a competition commissioned by the people's representatives in parliment. As the winning architect said, "This park is about dictatorship. And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described, built, this park is about democracy. After all, only democracy is able to give the opportunity to let us think freely about dictatorship." Placing propaganda in a museum setting would seem much more appropriate than leaving it to pollute the environment it was designed to pollute.