Is Mostar’s Bruce Lee statue an ironic conceptual art piece, a genuine memorial to mass atrocity, or both?
Many monuments in the former Yugoslavia amplify existing divisions and fail to provide for multi-ethnic collective remembrance. In Sarajevo…
References
“Outrage at Serb Plan for Church in Sarajevo.” Javno, May 15, 2008.
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1 Nino Raspudić, "Bruce Lee Monument in Mostar."
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Design Concepts for the Bruce Lee statue
The Bruce Lee statue, made by the Croatian sculptor Ivan Fijolic, was developed by the NGO Urban Movement Mostar in cooperation with the Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Art's De/construction of Monument Project. According to the designers, the project attempts to reclaim positive meaning in public spaces while questioning the significance of monuments and symbols, both old and new. It is intended to evoke and affirm the everyday events of people’s lives that have little to do with politics or national identity.
To demonstrate neutrality between Mostar’s Bosniak east and Croat west sides, the Bruce Lee bronze was positioned to face north. The statue, its designers hoped, would show that in an extremely divided city, some things common to all citizens still existed. “The monument is not being built for Bruce Lee the actor or the characters he played,” Urban Movement co-founder Nino Raspudić wrote, “but rather it is being built for the very idea of justice, represented in a plastic and universally acceptable way, that might also have the power to awaken some positive vibrations through the figure of the famous kung-fu hero we loved so much during our childhood.”
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