When it comes to talking about the meaning of monuments, it's useful to consider Upton’s Second Rule of Monument Making:
Monuments always say more about the people, times and places of their creation than they do about the people, times and places they honor.
Accordingly, as times change, so do public wants and needs for the monuments they create, install and maintain. And so it's only natural, in the summer of 2017, that we should expect scenes like this:
Credit: Shannon Wink / Billy Penn
Frank Rizzo, the Philly cop, police commissioner and mayor on whose watch the percentage of African-American police officers declined precipitously, once bragged, “I’m going to make Attilla the Hun look like a faggot.” Admirers memorialized Rizzo in a ton of bronze across top from City Hall seven years after his death. In light of recent removals of Confederate monuments, Philadelphians again ask the question that's been posed before: shouldn't the statue of Rizzo, a documented racist, also be banished? Or should it remain as a target for public discourse and the occasional graffiti and vandalism.
Credit: City Lights, 1931
Traditions of monument mocking run deep and proud with pigeons and protesters, cartoonists and comic actors. In City Lights, Charlie Chaplin’s Depression era classic, the film opens with the unveiling ceremony for a monument to "Peace and Prosperity." Chaplin takes full advantage.
Most monument mocking isn't so exquisitely choreographed, although it can be equally effective. Consider this 1950s monument to Soviet Army “liberators” in Sofia Bulgaria, as modified in 2011:
Credit: Anatoly Ivanov Photography
Reinterpreters transformed Soviet soldiers into fictional American "heroes:" Superman, the Joker, Robin, Captain America, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus, Wolverine, the Mask, and Wonder Woman. To drive the message home, they tagged it with graffiti: “Keeping up with the times.”
That's the idea today: keeping up with the times.
In the summer of 2017, the stakes are high for monument keeping, monument making, and art in public places. Are we raising the bar high enough? Or are we resetting it lower in order to avoid controversy and conflict? And if that's the case, if we're choosing message-free public art instead, what does that say about us?
Credit: The New York Times
In mid September, internationally renowned artist Cai Guo-Qiang (featured here and above by The New York Times, returns to Philadelphia with Firefly, a new public art project: customized pedicabs adorned with illuminated lanterns. It's dynamic, clever and fun. Nine hundred bouncing lanterns in the form of pandas, roosters, tigers; space aliens, UFOs, rocket ships, hamburgers and donuts. Starting mid-September, twenty-seven of these pedicabs will transport passengers along the 100-year-old Parkway every night, passing by all kinds of historic public art and monuments from earlier times.
What does Firefly add to this cultural ecosystem? What is its message, our takeaway? Is that where we want to be in 2017?
Opinions expressed are my own.
"And if that's the case, if we're choosing message-free public art instead, what does that say about us?"
Do we need public art in the first place? How about we start focusing on replacing those dead, gloomy, grey statutes with nature. I would gladly substitute those statutes with trees and vegetation.
Let's make the cities green!
Upvoted, followed and re-steemed.
Sometimes public spaces cry out for trees. Other they cry out for public art. The trick is to be able to sense which and how much and never to indulge in too much of either.
Excellent post on the dilemmas of "public art" @kenfinkel. I've got a ton of resources that I'll send you soon. I would love to get more of your ideas on these questions.
Looking forward to brainstorming with you @hansikhouse!
Great post. But the biggest lie of them all is the world could possibly be flat!! Do you think the world is flat? I know this sounds absurd but it's all over net surely it should be looked into. Can you imagine how much money NASA has gone through and they could be full of shit.
Monuments are great, they're a way to fund the arts, add culture to a town/city, and pay respects to people who do extraordinary things.
Society makes mistakes all the time though - monuments to proud racists are no good and should be taken down.
It's important to be able to see the difference between history and interpretation of history.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway turns 100 years old... and Firefly is paying homage to this artistic corridor? While it's fun, colorful, instagrammable... I'm not sure it's accurate or meaningful.
This is fine. But isn't the point that the Parkway is turning 100? What all has happened in those 100 years regarding multiplicity - the incredible art, the people, the protests, the concerts and layers of action. Monuments and public art are easy targets today (many rightfully so)... but I kinda think that bright lights don't paint a picture of the endurance that this Parkway has exhibited for the last century...
Thanks! Yes, we want our public art to resonate with our reality, our sense of place.
Hello @kenfinkel and brother to Kirk and Ben! I missed your introduce post so this is the first I'm able to upvote, but am not surprised to see a great quality post from you, welcome to steemit! Very important and poignant questions you post about what kind of dialogue todays times need. I personally think that more Charlie Chaplin would do all of us a lot of good ;-).
Thanks so much @natureofbeing! I appreciate your thoughts. And I very much agree. But you have it wrong about me being a brother to two of my Steemian offspring.
father? how wonderful!! forgive the error...
Yes, happily!
Sometimes the mocking of monuments speaks more loudly of the ire of the mockers than any meanings they choose to attribute to the physical art. Heroes of one place and era are villains to another.