Call for Papers

"Monument/Anti-Monument" is an international conference that will bring together artists, art historians, curators, academics, architects, urban planners, designers, archaeologists and other experts to explore contemporary thinking about the intersection of sculpture and public space.

While "Anti-Monument" was a term coined by Robert Smithson to refer to "accidental: monuments such as buildings and industrial spaces, this panel would center around the concept of Counter-Monuments, generally associated with Holocaust memorials and defined by James Young as created by artists who have, “a deep distrust of monumental forms in light of their systematic exploitation by the Nazis, and a profound desire to distinguish their generation from that of the killers through memory.” I'd like the panel to extend the idea of Counter-Monument, looking closely at how they function, or explore events that might be commemorated by a Counter-Monument but have not been.
Some possible topics might choose a particular Counter-Monument and discuss:

- Counter-Monuments challenge to national memory

- The depicted and the undepicted subjects of a Counter-Monument

- Counter-Monument and convention

- American memory, Native Americans and (the lack of) Counter-Monuments

Please email all abstracts of 300-500 words by September 18th 2013 to Professor Lenore Metrick-Chen at: Lmetrickchendrake.edu

More conference information available at http://sculpturecitystl.com/