20 Abandoned Yugoslav Monuments 2011

I found these at another blog (thanks to Tiffany Anders), and thought they were just amazing.

So I posted them to my fb page (and Trey's, too).

Now I'm editing and messing with the images (for some reason) and posting them fresh here to PROOF.

Don't ask me why. Time-killer, I guess, or to keep my mind off of today's annoying frustrations and to add some needed mood to these regular, old snapshots. Don't get me wrong, though. The subjects here are marvelous but the photography is just sort of whatever, so I'm pushing these images a little more into the abstract (rather than the representational).

Could I be gilding the lily?

Either that or it's opposite is possible.

"These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković...), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. In the 1980s, these monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their "patriotic education." After the Republic dissolved in early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings were forever lost."

"From 2006 to 2009, Kempenaers toured around the ex-Yugoslavia region (now Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.) with the help of a 1975 map of memorials, bringing before our eyes a series of melancholy yet striking images. His photos raise a question: can these former monuments continue to exist as pure sculptures? On one hand, their physical dilapidated condition and institutional neglect reflect a more general social historical fracturing. And on the other hand, they are still of stunning beauty without any symbolic significances."