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sculpture to contemporary art experiments, and thus take into account the phenomena that seemingly have nothing to do with the body, place or ideology.

Almost 40 year since the release of this book, memorial sculpture once again pushes its way into the forefront of public life. While in the Western Europe reputable newspapers write about the necessity of fighting against bad public art by analysing the ever-increasing number of monuments dedicated to pop culture icons (rock and pop musicians, actors, etc.), in most Eastern European countries public sculpture is mainly used as a means of ideological struggle. Even in the proverbially pluralistic art world of the United States, commemorating the victims of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001 gave rise to a serious public interest in the social function of monuments.

Nowadays, the artistic value of public sculpture cannot be perceived without the analysis of social relations. It does not suffice anymore to interpret public sculpture within the framework of modernist concept of formal innovation. The selection of works in this exhibition is not based on importance of their volumes, masses or contours, planes and anatomies of the portrayed figures, etc., but on their potential place in a wider social context. Let us begin, for example, with the statement that the public space – place without which a monument would not exist – has changed and that in transitional societies affected by economic crisis it is still changing. The public space in Croatia is subject to a kind of formal and informal privatization, which means that the former social property – in socialism, a natural resource under strict government control (party) – has acquired the features of the market. In such a situation, the main management principle is guided by the financial, or symbolic value of the location. So, for example, public sculpture in Zagreb is lately being erected within a specific place, with no real urban or artistic reason. At a representative southern entrance to the city, in a space not more than 500 meters long, Zagreb will soon get its third monument; similar thing is happening in the centre of the city, around Petar Preradović Square. With a certain right, this can be objected by saying that state or local authorities are still the only commissioners of public art and therefore one cannot talk about market management of space, but also has to take into account the specific, transitional position of Croatian, and probably every other Eastern European society. Namely, in the context of political pluralism and due to the dissolution of municipal and professional standards governing the relationship between the public space and artistic interventions, the hyper-production of public sculpture in Croatia can only be interpreted as a kind of ideological, even party competition. Monuments do not only promote the highest national values, but are also openly used in daily political conflicts, promoting thus certain political parties or individuals.

When talking about public sculpture in Croatia, another thing we have to pay attention to refers to the general liberalization of 33