Jan Kempenaers — Spomenik
“Photobook by Jan Kempenaers of the monuments of former Yugoslavia, with a text by Willem Jan Neutelings.”
The ASC: John Bailey's Bailiwick: Spomenik—Jan Kempenaers and “The End of History”
Beautiful, haunting, gigantic sculptures.
“There are hundreds of them scattered throughout villages and rural landscapes in the former Yugoslavia. Once the site of pilgrimages by schoolchildren, military veterans, patriots, and mourners who had lost family in WWII, these Spomeniks (monuments) are today rarely visited. Often built out of concrete in a style dubbed Brutalism, these secular totems were meant to endure, impervious to the mere march of time—a testament and continuous witness to the new unity of the historically fractious Balkan states—the unity of all the Slavs, YUGOSLAVIA.”