Looking for a free art and history lesson of contemporary Europe? You’ve got just a couple of weeks left to get to the Fowler Museum to see photographs of the futuristic-looking, yet dilapidated spomeniks ― Serbo-Croatian for monuments — that dot the hills and valleys of the former Yugoslavia like abandoned spaceships. From 2006–09, Antwerp-based artist Jan Kempenaers photographed these striking monuments. Erected by Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 1970s, the spomenikswere a focus of efforts to construct a cohesive identity for a radically heterogeneous nation. After the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, many of the monuments were destroyed and today, those that remain have fallen into disrepair and lie deserted. Spomenik: Photographs of the Monuments of Former Yugoslavia by Jan Kempenaers is on display through Sunday, Sept. 22. And remember, the Fowler is always free!
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