Abstracts
Abstract
From November 2017 to April 2018, in Mexico City’s Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, the Russian artistic-activist collective chto delat (what should be done?) exhibited a number of monuments in memory of the Russian revolution. In centring on three monuments, in this article I consider the ability of the collective’s monuments to inspire political mediations on historical potential embedded in revolutionary pasts. I argue that melancholia does not inevitably mark historical fixity or unaccomplished mourning, but rather a temporal openness to mnemonic productivity and solidarity. It is in this sense that melancholia does not index a pathological response to loss, but a political alternative to normative mourning. In recuperating melancholia as a potentially productive and critical relation to the past, chto delat reframes accusations of left-wing melancholia as being “stuck in the past” as an opening to consider alternatives to what is now.
Keywords:
- melancholia,
- memory,
- art,
- history,
- monument,
- left,
- Russia
Résumé
De novembre 2017 à avril 2018, un collectif d’artistes activistes russes Chto delat (que devrions-nous faire ?) a exposé un certain nombre d’oeuvres en mémoire de la révolution russe, au Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo (Musée universitaire d’art contemporain) de la Ville de Mexico. En me concentrant sur trois monuments, j’examine dans cet article la capacité des monuments du collectif à inspirer des médiations politiques sur le potentiel historique, ancré dans les passés révolutionnaires. Je soutiens que la mélancolie ne marque pas inévitablement une fixité historique ou un deuil inachevé, mais plutôt une ouverture temporelle à la productivité mnémonique et à la solidarité. En ce sens, la mélancolie n’indexe pas une réponse pathologique à la perte, mais plutôt une alternative politique au deuil normatif. En récupérant la mélancolie comme une relation potentiellement productive et critique au passé, Chto delat reformule les accusations de mélancolie de la gauche « coincée dans le passé » comme une ouverture pour considérer des alternatives à ce qui est actuel aujourd’hui.
Mots-clés :
- Mélancolie,
- mémoire,
- art,
- histoire,
- monument,
- left,
- Russie
Appendices
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