Removed from their context, the strange concrete monuments dotting the landscape of the former Yugoslavia can seem abstract, inscrutable, even “alien.” Called “Spomeniks” after the Serbo-Croatian word for “monument,” the massive sculptures were virtually unknown to the rest of the world before photographer Jan Kempenaers documented them with these striking photographs between 2006 – 2009.

With renewed interest came the spread of misinformation, as some claimed the monuments were Communist propaganda. But in truth, they weren’t displays of patriotic nationalism; they each commemorated specific local events, often antifascist uprisings by local citizens. Though many of them were built by and for the victims of fascist regimes, they’re often seen online alongside Nazi monuments with no references to their true meaning.

Now, artists and activists from the countries that formerly made up Yugoslavia are fighting to clear up those misconceptions, and it’s important that we listen, says author Owen Hatherly at the Calvert Journal in a piece called “Concrete Clickbait.” 

In many cases, the monuments were commissioned, funded and chosen locally, and their aesthetic reflects a shift in Yugoslavia towards an interest in modernism. In an age of rising international neofascism, these monuments have much to tell us, argues Hatherly, and “deserve better than to be glimpsed for a few seconds on Tumblr.”

“For Tihana Pupovac, a major problem is also the depoliticized framing of the monuments. Left without any indication of what they commemorate, or even of who designed them, the results are ‘deliberately oblivious’ to the anti-fascist struggle that they commemorate, or to why the artists and communities thought they were appropriate – which, once, they evidently did. ‘If we want to revive whatever we think can be found of politics in the aesthetic of these monuments, we have to go past nostalgia and past the sheer fascination.”

“Because, again, these monuments in themselves are not that unique, what was unique was the lived historical experience of socialism. And I think this is what lacks crucially from Kempenaers’ work. You can see this in the way he presents his work in former Yugoslavia and his total oblivion of the problem of anticommunism. And this makes him incapable of grasping the situation with these monuments today’, which in Croatia, is currently acute, not only with many of the monuments crumbling, but with a right-wing administration openly nostalgic towards the Ustaše and intent on burying whatever anti-fascist legacy might remain today.”

Erasing the context of the monuments also erases the scale of the atrocities that occurred in Yugoslavia, activists argue.

“’Yugoslavia was the fourth highest country in Europe in terms of civilian casualties’ during the Second World War [says Pupovac], and was also, along with Greece, the only country with a resistance movement – the multi-ethnic, Communist-dominated Partisans – that was large and strong enough to liberate the country almost without help from the Allies. The federal Yugoslavia that came out of this broke with Stalin and the USSR in 1948, and instituted a ‘self-management socialism’ of extreme complexity and decentralization.”

“This is what disappears in the Spomenik photos – as she puts it, ‘our lived historical experience of a revolution becomes only a cultural artefact’. [Architect and writer Dubravka] Sekulic argues that ‘a better way to engage with these monuments would be to use them as a tool to re-connect to the near past in which, as a society, we did not see space only as a commodity.’”

Read more about the meaning and history behind specific monuments at The Calvert Journal.

Top: Spomenik #1 (Podgarić); all images by Jan Kempenaers

Everyone knows about the Statue of Liberty, the Easter Island Moai heads, Mount Rushmore and the Sphinxes of Ancient Egypt, but not all monstrous monuments were built in centuries past. Colossal statues of even larger proportions are still built all over the world in modern times, from the many massive Buddhas of Asia to mythological creatures like merlions and shapeshifting horses. Though some of them are among the world’s tallest statues, these 7 are relatively lesser known, built between 1994 and 2017. (Of course, the former Soviet Union boasts so many oversized monuments, they’re in a category of their own.)

Mao Zedong’s Head, Changsha, China

The massive head of young Chinese dictator Mao Zedong gazes down at the city of Changsha, seemingly bursting from the rock in a grassy park. Built in 2007 by the Hunan People’s Government, it strays from the usual balding representations of Mao’s look later in life. It’s 105 feet tall and made of 8,000 pieces of granite, and here’s the kicker: it cost $300 million. Another giant statue of Chairman Mao, known as ‘Mega Mao,’ was built in Henan province in 2016 ridiculed so much for its excess that it was torn down soon after it went viral on the internet.

The Man Meets the Sea, Denmark

Four stark white figures stand 30 feet tall while seated, standing out when the sky is blue and virtually disappearing in cloudy weather. The ‘Man Meets the Sea’ sculpture is visible to ships arriving in or departing from Esbjerg Harbor on the southwest coast of Denmark. Created by Svend Wiig Hansen in celebration of the town of Esbjerg’s 100th anniversary as an independent municipality in 1994, the sculpture “portrays the meeting between pure, unspoilt mankind and nature. Man, innocent as from his mother’s womb. Man before rising up and beginning to act. That, according to Wiig Hansen, was where things started to go wrong – when man got ‘dirt’ on his hands.”

The Kelpies at Helix Park, Scotland

A pair of horse heads known as The Kelpies by sculptor Andy Scott emerged near the River Carron in the Falkirk Council Area of Scotland in October 2013 to celebrate a new extension of the Forth and Clyde Canal at Helix Park. Named for mythological Scottish shapeshifter that transform from horses into hooded humans, the statues pay tribute to the many horses that have helped Scotland become what it is today. Scott first created 9-foot-high versions in his studio, which were scanned by lasers and reproduced by steel fabricators. He envisions them as “water-borne, towering gateways into The Helix, the Forth and Clyde Canal and Scotland, translating the legacy of the area into proud equine guardians.”

Guan Yu God of War, Jingzhou, China

Quite stunning both for its proportions and its artistic merit, this enormous depiction of the Chinese god of war looks like he could start swinging his ‘Green Dragon Crescent Blade’ around at any second. Unveiled in 2017 in his namesake park in Jingshou, China, Guan Yu stands 190 feet tall, weighs over 1,320 tons and consists of over 4,000 bronze strips. He stands atop an 86,111-square-foot museum. Though he’s now been deified, Guan Yu was a real person, a general serving under warlord Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han dynasty. Known as a great warrior, he governed the Jing Province for seven years before he was captured and executed by a power-seeking betrayer in 220 C.E. His real-life exploits are rather overshadowed by myths that have sprung up around him, depicting him as the ultimate human embodiment of strength, loyalty and righteousness.

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The Modern Colossal 7 Lesser Known Monumental Wonders Of The World

Rich in symbolism and rife with meaning, these 20 abstract modern monuments and memorials radiate emotion and respect. Many architectural monuments like Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the new Pentagon Memorial in Virginia honor victims of genocide, terrorism and repression while others pay tribute to the United Nations, religious and historical figures, the military or simply to the transcendent power of peace.

Jewish Deportation Memorial by Studio Kuadra, Italy

(images via: evolo.us)

Standing in the spot where 355 captured Jews from the Italian Alps were once forced onto freight wagons by the Nazis, the Jewish Deportation Memorial silently acknowledges the tragic history of the site. Architects Studio Kuadra placed the names of the only 20 survivors in three-dimensional steel letters atop a raised concrete platform. 335 plaques in the ground name the prisoners that did not return from the concentration camps.

Women in the Memory Monument, Santiago, Chile

(images via: design boom)

In Santiago, Chile, this diaphanous memorial constructed of stone and glass honors women whose voices have been silenced by political repression throughout history. Representing visibility, the memorial was described by Sandra Palestro during an award presentation as “a transparent wall that does not divide the lives, that at any time and from any place, allows us to watch towards the past and the future, through the absent faces in the posters that the relatives of the victims of repression take tight to the heart.”

Pentagon Memorial, Arlington, Virginia

(images via: pentagonmemorial.org)

Inaugurated seven years after 9/11, the Pentagon Memorial by KBAS Studio is the result of collaboration with the friends and families of the victims. Located adjacent to the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 77, the memorial is a timeline based on the lives of the victims. Each ‘unit’ along the lines represents a place dedicated to the individual.

United Nations Memorial by ACME, South Korea

(images via: design boom)

Awarded third prize in a competition to design a United Nations memorial in Chungju, South Korea, this design proposal by London-based architecture firm ACME takes its inspiration from biological cells. The cells each stand for the individual countries that make up the UN, symbolizing the way in which they come together to form a single entity while retaining their own identities.

Burnham Pavilion by Zaha Hadid, Chicago, Illinois

(images via: zaha-hadid.com)

A monument both to the urban planner Daniel Burnham, an author of the Plan of Chicago, and to the city’s tradition of dreaming big, the Burnham Pavilion is a shell-like structure temporarily installed in the city’s Millennium Park. Says architect Zaha Hadid, “The design merges new formal concepts with the memory of bold historic urban planning. Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham’s organizational systems and architectural representations create unexpected results.”

6 Forgotten Monuments in Yugoslavia

(images via: archdaily)

These six eye-catching structures seem as if they’d be hard to forget – but they were built for a nation that no longer exists, and now they stand in ruins. These represent just a small fraction of the abandoned monuments in the former Yugoslavia. Commissioned by Josip Broz Tito, who was president in the 1960s and 70s, the bold, modern designs were designed by an array of sculptors and architects to convey the strength of the Socialist Republic, which fell in 1992. They once attracted millions of visitors every year.

M9 Memorial by Gonzalo Mardones Viviani, Santiago, Chile

(images via: archdaily)

The M9 Memorial in Santiago, Chile is positioned half-underground with a dramatic central dome acting as a place of refuge in which visitors can feel the concentration of ‘divine light’. Architect Gonzalo Mardones Viviani wanted the structure to stand as a connection between the human world and the sacred, saying “The place opens like a dialogue from the love of Mary at the foot of the Cross.”

Greater North Charleston Naval Base Memorial by BNIM and Burt Hill

(images via: burthill.com)

Charleston, a city known for its quaint historical architecture, may not be the place you’d expect to find a modern monument. However, the Greater North Charleston Naval Base Memorial manages to blend in, perhaps by virtue of the inspiration architects BNIM and Burt Hill took from the sea. Curving shapes and metal cladding call to mind ships and waves, and printed metal plaques tell the story of the former Naval Base.

Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van Der Rohe

(images via: archdaily)

Built for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, the Barcelona Pavilion by influential architect Mies Van Der Rohe is among the earliest examples of modernism. Designed as an ‘inhabitable sculpture’, a place of tranquility and escape from the exposition, this structure sits at the foot of the National At Museum of Catalonia and Montjuic. It was built on a grid system using travertine pavers.

Erlenbach Cemetery Building by AFGH, Switzerland

(images via: archdaily)

What might otherwise be an imposing structure is softened with geometric cut-outs in the support pillars and colored glass by architects AFGH. The Erlenbach Cemetery Building in Switzerland houses the visitor area facilities including ceremony services, two vigil rooms and a waiting room. Somber and reflective, the memorial building is also full of light.

Atlantic City Boardwalk Holocaust Memorial

(images via: bustler)

The winning design in a competition to design a new holocaust  memorial at the Atlantic City Boardwalk in New Jersey features an angled platform conceived as a fractured landscape symbolizing violence and a ‘river of light’ expressing the desire for peace. Say architects Patrick Lausell and Paola Marquez, students at Columbia University School of Architecture, “Interrupting the linearity of the boardwalk, the platform is a rupture, a disruptive force, an illogical moment in the sequence of history. Wedged between the broken surfaces, is a flowing sliver of light that offers a solemn moment of completeness and continuity.”

Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind, Berlin

(images via: archdaily)

Architect Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the Jewish Museum in Berlin acts as a massive memorial to the millions of Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. An interactive experience, the museum, based on an abstracted Star of David, pulls the visitor through various spaces that architecturally manifest concepts of isolation, fear and hope. Libeskind employed towering voids, empty spaces, dead ends and selective daylighting to give the structure an emotional identity.

CCCloud by Kengo Kuma, Italy

(images via: archdaily)

Completed in September 2010, architect Kengo Kuma’s ‘Casalgrade Ceramic Cloud’, or CCCloud, is made from unglazed ceramic tiles adapted for structural use by the client, Casalgrande Padana. Located in a roundabout in front of the company’s headquarters, the 40-foot-tall CCCloud acts like a sheer curtain hanging above a reflective pool. During the day, it blends in with the clouds, while at night, it stands as a dramatic illuminated sculpture against the night sky.

Bicentennial Torch, Leon, Mexico

(images via: archdaily)

Inspired by a torch featured in a Jose Clemente Orozco mural depicting the social struggle of Mexican independence, the bicentennial torch (Antorcha Bicentenario) stands 45 meters tall at the entrance into Leon, Mexico. Architects Jose Pareja Gomez and Jesus Hernandez Martinez placed a steel structure made of 100 rings interspersed with 100 voids atop a concrete base; a shadow projected onto them will produce optical negatives. The sculpture will act like a guiding light at night, shining into the air.