Markus Schinwald Monuments, 2009

Created in 2009, Markus Schinwald’s Monuments series troubles the nationalistic narratives and corresponding power structures preserved in historic commemorative sculptures. Plinths, cenotaphs and fountains in a range of architectural styles are rendered strange by the absence of figures. The void is both spatial and symbolic, as Schinwald’s erasure of the figurative element leaves the viewer with a series of undecipherable architectural forms.  Exemplifying the artist’s interest in reconfiguring historical imagery and modes of production within distinctly contemporary frameworks, the black-and-white prints depict these memorials within Western European civil settings, such as town squares and communal green spaces, foregrounding the role of monuments in upholding particular events in shared memory. The conceptual act of vandalism enacted in removing the figures strips away the original meanings of the memorials, asking what is being commemorated and why. Driven by Schinwald’s deep interest in the nature of embodied perception, particularly as conceived by French phenomenological theorist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61), the prints prompt viewers to consider the relationship of their own bodies to the works as they are confronted with the bodily absence of the monuments.