This paper is framed within the practice of Contemporary art and its links with Cultural Memory. This paper will explore the notion of James E. Young’s ‘counter-monument’ by way of identifying common features of contemporary artworks that address the issue of memory from Nazi period. Such artworks have developed some of the commemorative features that are frequently associated with the monument and commemorative practices in the civic ceremonies. James Young defines the counter-monument as the display of new monuments, initially in Germany, which ascribe to a range of patterns and characteristics, both formal and conceptual, that challenge the iconography of the traditional monument. In this paper I will present some counter-monuments and identify three such patterns; the first related to the concept of dematerialisation and banal, seen in the work of artists who use discarded objects to evoke the absence left by victims of traumatic historical events. The second feature related to reconstructing history, where the counter-memory and counter-histories of victims serve to question the official and hegemonic versions of history. The third aspect I will consider is the artists’ approach to temporality, often used as an agent to activate memory in the viewer. The works of Christian Boltanski, Rachel Whiteread, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Shimon Attie or Miroswla Balka are just some examples of contemporary artists working in this field and will be used to explore the counter-monument in this paper. A formal and conceptual analysis concluding in an iconographic examination of these artworks will enable me to assess their social, cultural and aesthetic value, and the role and function of contemporary art regarding history, memory and the commemoration of the German wartime.

This research seeks to examine the future of the abstract memorial within Holocaust memory. With two major purposes, examining the artists, locations, aesthetics of the more recent monuments which are abstract by design, the first objective will be to question whether the lack of abject along with the absence of didactic within memorial design will eventually give rise to the loss of the memorials purpose. Furthermore, as a consequence of this will the monument become a celebration of the artist, era or aesthetic qualities inherent within the design. Using architectural journals, newspaper archives along with interviews with the artists the study examines the responses to the abstract design of the memorial from not only the critics, but the visitors themselves. Empirical research of abstract memorials located across Europe observes the behaviour of the spectator with the aim to establish the importance of abject or didactic within the space for the memorial to fulfil its purpose. On the basis of the results of this research the data supports the view abstract representations within the Holocaust memorial require some tool or accessory to be successful in not only our generation but for the future generations. Finally, along with the evidence to support the study, the paper will continue to highlight how the evolution of memorialization within popular culture threatens not only the abstract memorial, the memorial culture as a whole. The author recommends further modifications to the existing sites to prevent the abstract memorial being celebrated by the future generations for reasons other than Holocaust memory.

The aim of this study is to assess memory and remembrance in presenting important concepts that establish construction of space, architecture and memorialization of the Holocaust. Some examples of memorials as the visual arts in the evocations of the Holocaust indicate a change in the ideological image of memory and understanding approach to European heritage after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Architecturally, the memorial spaces created a system of allusions, coding of real space and new findings are part of the implementation and presentation of the architecture of memory.

In 1992, James Young published an article examining the rise of the counter-monument in Germany. According to Young, the counter-monument provokes its viewers, demands interaction, has the possibility to change over time and insists that memory work be the burden of the viewer, not of the monument itself. While Young focused his attention on a particular set of Holocaust memorials built in Germany in the late 1980s, his formulation can be usefully applied to other contemporary memorials that increasingly incorporate particular design elements that mark them as counter-monuments. This article considers the design of several recent memorials in terms of their aesthetic and physical function as counter-monuments and identifies a new trend in memorial design, the creation of memorial museums, which further expands and complicates the role of these memorials.

This article reflects upon the possibility of the visualisation of different forms of collective memory in the city. It focuses on the evolution of the ways of commemorating in public spaces. It juxtaposes traditional monuments erected in commemoration of an event or an " important " person for a community with (counter)monuments as a modern, critical reaction geared towards what is either ignored in historical narratives or what remains on the fringe of collective memory. While following a theoretical exploration of the concepts of memory and their fruition in monuments as well as (counter)monuments, the eventual multimodal analysis central to the paper looks in-depth at Ruth Beckermann's work The Missing Image (Vienna, 2015). The latter is treated as an example of the possible and manifold interpretations of the function and multiplicity of meanings that (counter)-monuments bring to contemporary urban spaces. Keywords (counter)monuments, monuments, city spaces, collective memory, narratives of the past City space is approached within the social sciences as a mixture of material, economic and administrative components, but also ever more frequently as both the object and outcome of symbolic power. The latter relies on the sig-nification of localised discourses and systems of imagination 1 and is crucial in the processes of identity politics and of re/defining collective identity 2 as

Monuments, tombs, statues, artistic performances and digital images, driven by the issue of memory, through the movement of criticism and destruction, are the key concepts of this article, which was composed as a joint (two-author) essay. These concepts are intertwined with Walter Benjamin's thought and inferential examples, mostly connected to the politics of the past and its echoes in the present. The political issues quoted in the essay are related to colonial times as well as to the present, accentuating the racial mixture of the Brazilian people expressed through an allegorical type: the caboclo/cabocla.

This artistic research reflection deals with what I call the “participatory monument”, the intention of which is to bring members of the public into the artwork and to openly share related experiences with them, thus providing evidence of the existence and potential transformative power of collective memory.

This article analyses strategies of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces. Deploying a philosophical and socialtheoretical interpretation systematised by, in particular, Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies and its analysis of material commemoration, the article compares the semiotics of modes of commemorating through monuments and counter-monuments. As is argued, counter-monumental commemoration aligns much better than the traditionally static and non-dialogic monuments with the ongoing post-modern transformation and fluidity of contemporary urban spaces. By the same token, countermonuments also allow commemoration of complex and difficult past events – such as the Holocaust – that are traditionally surrounded by multiple interpretations and often-conflicting attempts to commemorate them. The analysis at the core of the paper looks in-depth at counter-monumental installations known as Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Blocks, developed since the early 1990s by the German artist Gunter Demnig as a form of commemoration of victims of National Socialism and especially the Holocaust. As is suggested, counter-monuments such as the Stolpersteine carry multiple meanings and have multiple functions which allow for diverse patterns of interaction with past/present. They also allow embedding the dialogue between forms of commemoration (monument/counter-monument) various recipients (locals/tourists, spectators/passers-by) as well as their varied interpretations and expectations of commemoration in the discourse of contemporary urban space.