Focus on this artwork and explore the abstract.
Lenin Monument April 13th 1917 is a 1977 public art installation by Swedish artist Björn Lövin. It is part of the outdoor collection of Moderna Museet in Stockholm and is located on Skeppsholmen near the museum's main entrance.
The artist made the installation based on a 1917 Axel Malmström photograph of Vladimir Lenin and entourage leaving the Stockholm Central Station on foot. The installation was first exhibited in 1977 at Kulturhuset, Stockholm, as part of Lövin's exhibition Minnet sviker (Failed Memory), and was purchased by Moderna Museet the same year.The work recreates a cobblestone street section in which the title character is absent and only represented by a cross-mark. Unlike a huge number of Lenin monuments and statues around the world, this work is not a celebration of the disputed Russian revolutionary. Instead, it is rather an anti-monument – a "nonument" – that challenges the underlying power structures that determine which sites, people and dates are recognized as historically significant. A similar approach can be seen in works by artists such as Braco Dimitrijević, Jochen Gerz and Walid Raad.
The work is not a tribute to a person or a deed, as is often the case with monuments. Instead, it raises questions of what and how we remember, or want to remember, collectively.
Braco Dimitrijević anti-monument Walid Raad Vladimir Lenin Axel Malmström Moderna Museet art installation public Skeppsholmen Monument Björn Lövin Jochen Gerz Kulturhuset monument Stockholm Central Station Lenin monuments and statues around the world