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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Eight: Using symbols and metaphors to express meaning > Fallen leader, Mogosoaia, outside Bucharest, Romania, 2009’
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22-OCT-2009

Fallen leader, Mogosoaia, outside Bucharest, Romania, 2009’

Just outside the walls of historic Mogosoaia Palace, two huge statues lie discarded in a muddy field. One of them depicts Lenin, who is resting face down. The other one once honored Romania’s first Communist prime minister, Petru Groza, who rests face up, hat in hand, arm outstretched. His statue was dumped here twenty years and has been gathering bird droppings ever since. I photograph only Groza’s statue here, cropping in on the middle section of the statue, and abstracting it into a symbol of political failure. We primarily see the two hands, one still clutching the stained and dated hat, the other gesturing futility against a crumbling brick wall. It becomes a symbol that goes beyond Romanian political history – it shows us how history remembers all failed political systems.

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Phil Douglis15-Feb-2010 20:58
Thanks for being the first to recognize the significance of this image, Kerry. The closer I came to the statue, the stronger the image became as well. I knew that such discarded statues made strong political and historical statements -- it was simply a matter of time before I was granted a few moments with such a subject and I tried to make the best of that time.
Kerry Tingley15-Feb-2010 15:43
What a fabulous shot of an historic cycle.
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