The Melancholy Monument of the Left

From November 2017 to April 2018, in Mexico City’s MuseoUniversitario Arte Contemporaneo, the Russian artistic-activist collectivechto delat (what should be done?) exhibited a number of monuments inmemory of the Russian revolution. In centring on three monuments, in thisarticle I consider the ability of the collective’s monuments to inspire politicalmediations on historical potential embedded in revolutionary pasts. I arguethat melancholia does not inevitably mark historical fixity or unaccomplishedmourning, but rather a temporal openness to mnemonic productivity andsolidarity. It is in this sense that melancholia does not index a pathologicalresponse to loss, but a political alternative to normative mourning. Inrecuperating melancholia as a potentially productive and critical relation to thepast, chto delat reframes accusations of left-wing melancholia as being “stuckin the past” as an opening to consider alternatives to what is now.

The Melancholy Monument of the Left Journal Articles