Yeltsin Family Horrified by Proposed Monument

Posted on October 17, 2007

The family of Boris Yeltsin is appalled at the black, amorphous sculpture that an artist wishes to dedicate to memory of the deceased Russian leader, who is credited for helping end Communist rule. He was Russia's first president.

Boris Yeltsin's family has frowned upon a design for an unofficial monument to the late Russian leader dubbed the "biomorphic black monster". In a letter carried by Russian media, Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana said the family would object to the erection of the black metal memorial. Sculptor Dmitri Kavargi's design topped an internet poll conducted by art4.ru, an avant-garde modern art museum.
The museum is said to be seeking permission to install it in Moscow. Yeltsin, who played a key role in the Soviet Union's demise and became Russia's first president, died of heart failure aged 76 on 23 April.
"This is a monument to the destruction and disintegration... without which new creation is absolutely impossible. "It is customary to record in the memory the formation or destruction of the latest illusion with the leader's name. Boris Yeltsin accomplished his role with distinction..." Museum director Igor Markin, who used the term "biomorphic black monster", said the design was the most radical of those submitted. The Yeltsin family, his daughter Tatyana Yumasheva stressed, had no involvement in the competition. "We would object if the issue were raised of erecting a monument like this anywhere," she wrote in excerpts from her letter published by Russian news agency Ria-Novosti. The museum is believed to be seeking permission from Moscow's city authorities to erect the memorial on Lubyanka Square, home of Russia's secret police since Soviet times.

We don't blame the family for being upset. What, they couldn't just do a nice traditional bronze statue of Yeltsin in a heroic pose? No, instead they get Transformer Yeltsin, which looks like it got caught mid-morph into who knows what. No one is going to look at the Black Transformer Sculpture and say, "Hey, this must be an ode to President Yeltsin...it's clearly a monument to the destruction and disintegration... without which new creation is absolutely impossible."

You need something that you can trot busloads of students past and say, "And there is our glorious first president, who bravely faced down the Communists on the streets of Moscow, thereby instituting a glorious new era of democracy." Or something like that.