Abstract
Paul Emmanuel's works to be discussed are site-specific, counter-memorial statements called The Lost Men. Each installation consists of semi-transparent cloth banners carrying photographic images of parts of the artist's body, imprinted with the names of men who represent participants from both sides of each conflict memorialised. These are often men who went undocumented in official records and include those who were lost or killed in major conflicts, from the Frontier Wars in the Eastern Cape: The Lost Men Grahamstown (2004), to the civil war in Mozambique: The Lost Men Mozambique (2007) and from World War 1: The Lost Men France (2014). Emmanuel's banners are fragile; some have been lost and some have deteriorated in situ. In all their iterations, they engage with memory, impermanence, vulnerability, death and an alternative view of masculine identity that undermines the macho aggression associated with warfare. I discuss the role a lack of material substance plays in enhancing the message of loss and grief. I argue that the very impermanence of cloth is essential to countering what Pierre Nora (1989:8) terms the 'lieux de memoire' - lasting physical memorials that enshrine and perpetuate "memories" when the lived experience of those memories have long been lost. Emmanuel's Lost Men are truly in the process of being "lost" through disintegration, and I argue that this physical deterioration, in conjunction with the imagery Emmanuel uses, is the key to their success as counter-memorials.
Highlights
Paul Emmanuel’s works to be discussed are site-specific, counter-memorial statements called The Lost Men
The Lost Men projects have been discussed in several articles, 2 but in this essay I aim to approach the works with particular reference to discourses on counter-memorials
I consider the function and structure of war memorials and monuments and their attempts to “fix” specific memories, in order to provide a context from which to identify how and why Emmanuel’s The Lost Men project differs. This is followed by a discussion of The Lost Men under the heading of countermemorials to explain how these installations might actively undermine the commemorative function of memorials
Summary
Paul Emmanuel (born 1969) is an artist who engages with the complex constructs of masculinity and rituals of life and death within the South African context. I consider the function and structure of war memorials and monuments and their attempts to “fix” specific memories, in order to provide a context from which to identify how and why Emmanuel’s The Lost Men project differs. This is followed by a discussion of The Lost Men under the heading of countermemorials to explain how these installations might actively undermine the commemorative function of memorials. I argue that is it the nature of their (im-)materiality and impermanence, as much as the imagery and content of Emmanuel’s works, that identifies them as counter-memorials
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