Focus on this artwork and discuss the Criticism.
Although not a statue or other clear glorification of Lenin, the work has nonetheless been the subject of some controversy. Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt called the work "shameful" in a 2016 tweet. In a letter to the editor of Dagens Nyheter in 2020, following international debates about contentious monuments in the wake of the George Floyd killing, a reader asked for the removal of the work, criticizing it to be a tribute to Lenin. In a reply, two curators at Moderna Museet wrote that the work rather raises a number of hard-to-answer questions and that "...the only thing that is certain about Björn Lövin's work is that it is not a tribute to Lenin".The criticism is largely due to the presentation of a controversial historical figure, like Lenin, in a prominent public space, like Moderna Museet, and the artist's rather wry and playful use of the word "monument" in the work's title.
George Floyd killing Carl Bildt Dagens Nyheter Moderna Museet public contentious monuments Björn Lövin monument