“December 2023

In this issue we look at anti-monuments, counter-monuments and other alternative memorials over the last 150 years.

The Swedish curator Peter Box Andersson — who had a contribution to the journal as far back as Pist Protta no. 12 — approached the editors about a year ago with a sample collection of counter-monuments, and suggested that we should together make an issue of the journal about the subject. He also suggested that the Swedish art historian Thomas Millroth be involved.

The topic is obvious after recent years of taking down statues and other forms of protest against the rulers of the past and their deeds. What can even be tolerated in public space? Violence, poverty, nudity? Drinking, smoking, strong emotional outbursts? And what about the unsightly and offensive monuments that support simplistic and one-sided historical narratives, should they also be accepted?

There is a long tradition of artists and activists modifying and deconstructing monuments that are no longer relevant or prove unreliable.

We look at the aesthetic manifestations of memory that are exposed to artistic interventions that revitalize public space.

We look at public space as an ideological landscape.” - Publisher