Monumentalism as a Rhetoric of Impact

This essay discusses the new monumental quality of contemporary exhibition projects and works of art - paintings, sculptures, and installations. I aim to demonstrate that large scale works of art have always had strong impacts on the onlooker; they have the potential to create strong effects such as shock and sublime amazement and are connected to a rhetoric of power, to a strong emotional and bodily effect. Earlier monumental formats and large-scale compositions confronted the spectator; in contrast, the new contemporary monumental works of art answer to the growing need of impact as a critical criterion for art and try to overpower the onlooker completely. Participation is a dominating strategy of contemporary art. It becomes both the material and the legitimization of the monumental. The individual perceives him- or herself as a member of a collective experience. Together, they co-produce the experience and the impact they are offered to consume. To trigger interaction between members of the public crowd and hence to produce communal experience and collective communication - that is what contemporary monumental works of art intent to achiev