political monuments from the 20th to the 21st century: memory, form, meaning EEIT 2021 political monuments from the 20th to the 21th century: memory, form, meaning edited by Lia Yoka This publication was possible with the financial support of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports (Act.: ΥΠΠΟΑ/34784/31.01.2022) Editor: Lia Yoka Title: Political Monuments from the 20th to the 21st Century: Memory, Form, Meaning Publication design: Spyros Moschonas Graphic design, cover design: Anna Patrinou Cover: Workers in front of the Monument of Liberation by Memos Makris, Pécs, Hungary, 1975 [photo by Pierre Parce, archive of Memos Makris] Published in Athens in December 2022 by the Association of Greek Art Historians Aghion Asomaton 55, 10553, Theseion www.eeit.org Publication copyright: the Association of Greek Art Historians Text copyright: the authors Artworks copyright: the artists Legal permissions for the publication of all photographs in this volume have been obtained by the authors, and are the responsibility of the authors. ISBN: 978-618-85298-4-7 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted for commercial purposes, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing by the authors of the respective article or by the Association of Greek Art Historians. We would appreciate inquiries concerning reproductions of the volume. or parts of it, for educational and scholarly purposes addressed to the authors and to the Association of Greek Art Historians, (email: info@eeit.org, or postal address, s. above). CONTENTS Foreword Lia Yoka Introduction 9 11 A1: art and memorialization from the 20th to the 21st century Evangelia Diamandopoulou Memory's palimpsest in visual narration 21 Eleni Margari National Monuments and Gender: Female Figures in 20th Century Greek and European Public Sculpture 33 Iokasti Foundouka The architectural monument as a cinematographic sign: The case study of ‘The Belly of an Architect’ 51 Katia Papandreopoulou Thoughts on the fate of public monuments during the Black Lives Matter movement: A request for epuration in the decolonial era 71 Stella Bolonaki Monuments and hegemony: Estimating the role of the monument through contemporary art's dialectic 91 A2: the Cold War in the ‘memory wars’ Alexandros Teneketzis From the Soviet to the socialist memory: The monuments for the Second World War in the Warsaw Pact countries 103 Stavros Alifragis Body and Architecture: Narratives of Commemoration on the occasion of Lenin’s Mausoleum 121 Kostas Korres Memento Park: A semiotic analysis of the ironic graveyard of the socialist monuments in Hungary 139 Dora Kechagia The three burials of Mario Sironi 163 B1: monuments as sites of national contention in modern Greece Konstandina Ntakolia Monuments for the Greco-Turkish war of 1897 173 Anastasia Mitsopoulou, Theodosis Tsironis Mapping the memory of the Macedonian Struggle through its monuments: The ‘Monuments of Macedonia Archive’ of the Macedonian Struggle Museum 185 Stratos Dordanas The monuments of the national schism and the memory of WWI in Greece 197 Maria Poulou Designated locations for the veneration of victory: The siting of war memorials in Athens and Piraeus (1945-1960), in areas with an active role in the Resistance during the Axis Occupation 209 Artemis Zervou ‘An issue of politics’ and ‘a question of aesthetics’. The erection of the Monument to Harry S. Truman in Athens (1963) and its reception by artists and intellectuals 225 6 Spyros Moschonas Unexecuted Monuments: The Kalavryta Monument (1962) by Vassos Kapandais and the Gorgopopotamos Monument (1985) by George Zongolopoulos 243 B2: the signification of memory in non-sculptural monuments Nikos Kalogirou, Sophocles Kotsopoulos Byzantine revivals: The political management of memory in the post-1917-reconstruction of Thessaloniki 263 Konstandinos Ioannidis A photographic monument for those who were too many: Smyrna Central Prison (1919-1922) 279 Archondia Polyzoudi The politics and poetics of ‘living monuments’ in Greece: The case of Mount Athos 297 7 Thoughts on the fate of public monuments during the BLM movement: a request for epuration in the decolonial era Katia Papandreopoulou In the introduction of the 1986 edition of the now infamous Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon, theorist Homi Bhabha reminds us that ‘the struggle against colonial oppression changes not only the direction of Western history, but challenges its historicist “idea” of time as a progressive, ordered whole’. 1 The policy of erection, in the occidental world at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, of a large number of monuments dedicated to the American Civil War, to politicians involved in colonialism, or to personalities with a racist treatment of the black community, has generated dilemmas and contradictions in the past few years regarding public management of the memory of a traumatic past. Bhabha underscored, and perhaps anticipated the extreme marginalisation experienced by the colonial individual in the post-Enlightenment era, attempting to appropriate a historic past that does not belong to them. Particularly since the mainstream emergence of the BLM antiracist movement in 2020, the complex issues brought up by demands for decolonisation of the public space in recent years have come into fierce conflict with the linear history narrated by former colonialist and slave-holding states, which reserved no place for marginalised and under-represented communities of citizens. Monuments in the public space and 1. Bhabha, p. xxiv. 71 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING representations associated with a slave-holding or racist past, once at the service of the occidental, white narrative, have in recent years been plundered, vandalised or transferred to a safer place, usually the protected, yet contentious space of a museum.2 BLM, an activist movement of civil disobedience, although founded in 2013 by three black queer women, gained worldwide attention after the murder of African American George Floyd by a white policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020. It took only a few hours for images and videos of his murder to go viral in the global community, giving rise to violent reactions against police violence in all states of America and elsewhere in the following months. However, the protesters were not just taking aim at racism based on skin colour, but more broadly the perception of a heritage built on exclusion. Although the tendency to re-signify public spaces had already appeared at the end of the 90s, its universal claim in favour of indigenous and black communities became even more marked thanks to the activism of the BLM movement. Those public monuments still remaining in certain Southern states of America as an awkward reminder of the Confederation Period, as well as those associated with racist actions of the past, came under attack, one after another, as symbols of the foundational racism of the United States. In this text, we will reconsider the destruction and tearing down of confederate monuments or other monuments with racist connotations, integrating them in the broader debate on decolonisation of public spaces and institutions in the past decade. This debate, preoccupying more and more curators, theorists and (art) historians,3 has not yet managed to infiltrate society on a broader level, as demonstrated by the violent protests against monuments in public spaces, not only in the US but also in European countries with a colonial past. The control of knowledge challenged by contemporary critical theory of decoloniality4 must be passed on to subaltern communities, since the monumentalisation and promotion of heroes has traditionally belonged to the mainstream narrative of history in the West. To what extent are decolonisation and its methodologies possible in public spaces when, as we will see, the concept of race is intrinsically linked to public history and by extension to monuments of its art? 2. See, for several cases, Levinson, passim. 3. See Allain Bonilla, Some Theoretical and Empirical Aspects and Allain Bonilla, We promise to decolonize the museum. 4. Following Mignolo’s urging, As far as controversies and interpretations remain within the same rules of the game (terms of the conversation), the control of knowledge is not called into question. Mignolo, p. 4. 72 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Vandalism by numbers and geography In 2018, the number of monuments dedicated to the Confederacy amounted to 772.5 Until September 2020, the Wikipedia page listing the monuments that have been vandalised or removed during BLM protests included 438 reported cases, with the vast majority (338) concerning the United States (Image 1), and the others divided between England, Canada, India and New Zealand.6 Image 1 Protesters attempt to pull down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House on 22 June 2020 [Credit: Drew Angener, Getty Images]. Although transfer requests or vandalism of confederate statues and monuments were relatively less frequent until 2014, they rose exponentially from 2015 onwards, exploding during the BLM movement period aſter Floyd’s murder. It is not a coincidence that Sanford Levinson’s book Written in Stone, exploring issues of public history and the role of monuments in its conformation, was only 120 pages long when published in 1998. However, its re-edition 20 years later (2018) contained double the content and comprised an aſterword dedicated to the damages, vandalism and dozens of transfer requests of confederate statues and public monuments.7 There is no doubt that if the book were rewritten aſter 2020, it would be hundreds of pages longer. The case of Lincoln’s statue in Boston is one of the most crucial for comprehension of today’s situation. The Emancipation Memorial (or Freedman’s Memorial) is a monument that was designed and sculpted in 1875 by Thomas Ball, known especially for his monumental creations, and is located in Lincoln Park in Washington, DC.8 It represents Abraham Lincoln proudly standing, holding the Emancipation Proclamation, the document that abolished slavery in 1863. Kneeling in front of him is a scantily clad coloured man, ready to stand up and set himself free. The man, a symbol of the emancipated slave, was Archer Alexander, whose biography was written by William Eliot in 1885 under the title The Story of Archer Alexander. The reproduction of this monument, and source of the recent conflict, was located in Boston’s Park Square in Massachusetts 5. Information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), republished in Linn-Tynen, p. 258. 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_removed_during_the_ George_Floyd_protests [accessed 25 October 2020]. 7. In his ‘Aſterword’, Levinson treats, among others, the memorials of Cecil Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, and Robert E. Lee. 8. Levinson, pp. 35-36. 73 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING (Image 2). The statue, funded by donations of former slaves, had already been strongly criticised since it was first erected, not only for the dehumanising posture of the enslaved man, but mainly for the provocative oversight of the active role played by the black community in the abolition of slavery by ignoring a different version of the monument, in which Lincoln was surrounded by black men holding firearms. Of course, Image 2 The Emancipation Group, Boston [Credit: the version of the white man as the David L. Ryan/Globe Staff/File]. saviour of the race and nation is the one that prevailed.9 However, which version should prevail today? In the beginning of September 2020, some protesters attempted to topple the statue, seeing Abraham Lincoln as a representative of white oppression. More pragmatic historians consider this event to be an opportunity to teach a more complex version of Lincoln’s identity and heritage compared to his image as a slave-liberator that was propagated from the start in the occidental (white) narrative.10 Another case, controversial for all groups of experts, as well as state authorities, involved the statues of Christopher Columbus (Image 3). Associated with the genocide of indigenous populations, according to Tuhiwai Smith ‘he has come to represent a huge legacy of suffering and destruction’.11 Indeed, against the backdrop of decolonisation, Columbus Day, until recently a national holiday in many American states, was replaced by Indigenous Peoples Day. The city of Chicago, which was home to three sculptures of the Italian explorer, proceeded with their removal and transfer when in July 2020, activist groups in support of black and indigenous communities attempted to pull down his bronze statue, designed and sculpted by sculptor Carlo Brioschi, in Grant Park.12 9. See the debate by Todd Brester, ‘Lincoln deserves statues but the Emancipation Memorial misleads on him and Black history’, USA Today, 4 July 2020 <https://eu.usatoday.com/ story/opinion/2020/07/04/emancipation-memorial-misleads-on-lincoln-black-history-column/5359303002/> [accessed 25 October 2020]. 10. See Gates, pp. xix-lxviii. In December 2020 Emancipation Group was eventually removed from its site, following a decision of the Boston Art Commission and a petition that gathered 12000 signatures. 11. Tuhiwai Smith, p. 21. 12. Colin Boyle, ‘Protesters try to tear down Columbus Statue in Chicago as clashes between police, activists turn violent, Block Club Chicago, 17 July 2020 <https://blockclubchica- 74 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Image 3 Statue of Christopher Columbus decapitated, Boston [Credit: Getty Images]. In all these cases, the monument ceases to function as medium of intermediation between representation of reality and collective memory; it functions as a mirror of the controversial personality, thus easily bringing to mind the first period of iconoclasm and the identification with the face of the saint, on the altar of whom the artwork concerned was sacrificed. A conflagration of protests during the Presidency of Donald Trump Ever since his election in 2016, former American President Donald Trump has clearly been a supporter of white supremacy, a fact that instigated many extreme and extremist groups to re-emerge and obtain indirect legitimacy from the ex-President’s pampering discourse. In 2016, he appeared to condone the white supremacy terrorist group, the ΚΚΚ, which seems to have significantly increased its number of supporters during Trump’s presidency.13 Refusing to condemn their actions in public, he maintained go.org/2020/07/17/protesters-try-to-tear-down-columbus-statue-in-chicago-as-clashes-between-police-activists-turn-violent/> [accessed 9 November 2020]. 13. Cf. Tattered Robes: ‘The State of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States’, Anti-Defamation League (2016) <https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/combatinghate/tattered-robes-state-of-kkk-2016.pdf> and Mark Potok, ‘The Year in Hate and Extremism’, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 17 February 2016 <https://www.splcenter.org/fightinghate/intelligence-report/2016/year-hate-and-extremism>. 75 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING Image 4 Image of George Floyd projected on the Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, 20 June 2020 [Credit: REUTERS/Jay Paul]. that ‘there were very fine people on both sides’14 (meaning both on the extreme right and on the extreme leſt), while during his recent pre-election debate with Joe Biden, as BLM protests were still going strong, he refused to condemn the hate group Proud Boys when a journalist posed the question.15 Furthermore, his antiimmigration policy based on a proposed border wall between Mexico and the United States, encouraged extreme-right rhetoric and exacerbated divisions to an extent not seen since the disunion of the American Civil War. Hence 2017 was marked by an explosion of requests from community leaders and city mayors for an urgent transfer of confederate statues in order to prevent their vandalism. The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, found itself at the centre of this turmoil when attempts to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee were met with great resistance and one of the largest recent mobilisations of white nationalists. The violence of the crowd caused one death and dozens of injuries, making the city the focal point of political turmoil that was only starting to spread. Following consecutive polls, Lee’s statue was covered with a black veil, and in November 2019, protesters sprayed ‘Impeach Trump’ and ‘This is Racist’ on the statue’s base. The former Robert E. Lee park, former Emancipation Park (2016-2017) and current Market Street Park (2017-) where the monument is located, became a site of intense BLM protests, leading to its definitive removal. The Mayor of Richmond declared his satisfaction: ‘It’s time to replace the racist symbols of oppression and inequality – symbols that have literally dominated our landscape’. That same night, an image of George Floyd was projected on the marble base of the statue16 (Image 4). 14. Charlottesville: Trump reverts to blaming both sides including ‘violent alt-leſt’, The Guardian, 16 August 2017 <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/15/donald-trump-pressconference-far-right-defends-charlottesville> [accessed 9 November 2020]. 15. New York Times, 29 September 2020 <https://www.nytimes.com/ live/2020/09/29/us/presidential-debate-trump-biden#refusing-to-categorically-denounce-white-supremacists-trumpfalsely-says-extremist-violence-is-not-a-right-wing-problem> [accessed 9 November 2020]. 16. Bill Chappell, ‘Massive Robert E. Lee Statue in Richmond, Va., will be removed’, NPR, 4 July 2020, <https://www.npr.org/2020/06/04/869519175/massive-robert-e-lee-statue-in-richmond -va-will-be-removed?t=1601799762783> [accessed 12 October 2020]. 76 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Race and art history The recent wave of indignation and destruction of monuments to slavery and symbols of racial oppression by activists, until now promoted by less visible groups of citizens, as well as the lack of representation thereof in the public space by symbols and monuments rightfully representing their past and history, is directly related to the concept of race with which art history has been familiar ever since it was first established as a discipline.17 The emergence of art history in the 19th century went hand in hand with the racial perception of nations and their civilisations. Art historians and historians of aesthetics from Karl Schnaase to Louis Courajod and Louis Hautecoeur reproduced stereotypes on race sheltered by their academic scholarship. As of 1864, Hippolyte Taine had integrated in his teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts the concept of race, milieu, and moment as an autonomous category of classification and approach to comprehending the achievements of Western civilisation.18 Louis Courajod, reflecting on the ‘aura’ of the statues that he was curating in the Louvre, classified their value and meaning in terms of their nation of origin (la nation). The discourse on the barbarism of monuments that did not fit into Latin heritage fell linguistically, according to Courajod, under barbarie, and even his courses in the École du Louvre bore that title.19 According to Eric Michaud, the regulating, inherent contrast between races and more precisely the division between Germanic and Latin races is what shaped the history of modernity in the 19th century into a conventional model for interpreting civilisations.20 The 19th century in Europe saw the legitimisation of discrimination based on race within the sciences, and its systematisation – through the development of biology – in the foreboding classification of civilisations according to race.21 Approximately that same period also witnessed the establishment of separatist movements in America which would trigger many decades of protests against their racial politics. Subsequently, modernism, via formalism and the problematic reception of the indigenous and non-occidental element, sealed the hierarchy of Western art over the other nations’ artefacts. In her introduction to the anthology Race-ing Art History, Kimberly Pinder reminds readers how discourse on the non-occidental has always been discussed in terms of naivety, uncivilisation and purity.22 However, it is the very 17. Cf. Michaud. 18. 5 volumes will result from his teaching: Philosophie de l’art (1865), Philosophie de l’art en Italie (1866), De l’Idéal dans l’art (1867), Philosophie de l’art dans les Pays-Bas (1868), Philosophie de l’art en Grèce (1869). 19. Courajod, ‘L’Art Barbare’, leçons 15-17, pp. 177-196. 20. Michaud, p. 113. 21. Ternon, pp. 17-47. 22. Pinder, p. 1. 77 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING geographic exclusivity of the discipline of art history that collides with the globalisation of the present moment. The Kantian heritage spoke in universalist terms about the aesthetics of the local, a fact that confirms James Elkins’ anguish regarding the lack of debate concerning the re-evaluation of absolute terms in the globalisation era.23 Destruction of monuments and art history From May 2020 onwards, as the BLM movement grew, the visual sources available to us regarding the destruction of monuments have multiplied exponentially, as if the eccentric procedures of monument toppling and vandalism had become a political spectacle of visual consumption of non-tolerance and the obsolete. In the field of art history, in the rather limited existing bibliography regarding the destruction of (public) art,24 the authors agree that iconoclastic events over time tend to be interpreted basically as social art histories, and that the violence to which these objects are submitted goes hand in hand both with the histories of reception and unconfortable histories these objects tell in the public sphere.25 The systematic destruction of artworks and monuments in art history is intrinsically associated with respective political, ideological or religious motives: from the vandalism of monuments of the Ancien Régime during the French Revolution to the massive destruction aſter 1989 of monuments erected by communist regimes in Berlin and East Germany, destruction had always been legitimised as part of the political nuance of regimes that no longer existed. As Gamboni argues, ‘the literal fall of a monument seems to be predestined to symbolise the metaphorical fall of the regime that had ordered its erection’.26 In the 20th century, the primary sources of controversy surrounding public monuments and works of art had essentially formalistic/aesthetic and political causes. Looking back on these causes, the researcher will be able to distinguish, for example, the crushing impulse of the label ‘Degenerate Art’ placed by the Nazis on works of modern European painting and sculpture, a label that took many decades and curating tactics for post-war-Germany and its official institutions to overcome.27 Nevertheless, the legitimisation of vandalism seems to be derived more from the state and its services than from the field of art, which in most cases calls into question or opposes motives 23. Cf. Elkins, pp. 1-4. 24. Gamboni’s study (The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism) is still the most complete regarding this subject matter. See also, Freedberg, 1985 and Warnke 1977. Regarding exhibitions, see the important contribution of the ‘Iconoclash’ exhibition in ZKM in Carlsruhe (4/5-4/9 2002) and its catalogue, edited by Weibel and Latour, 2002. 25. Cf. Gamboni, p. 22. 26. Gamboni, p. 62. 27. Cf. documenta 1 in Kassel by Arnold Bode (1955). 78 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU and methods of destruction of the works, seeing them as violent and ineffective.28 In Europe more precisely, these methods bring out traumatic memories, either of the burning and destruction of artworks during the Third Reich, or, in France, the destruction of cathedrals during WWI. Insufficient familiarisation of the field of art history with the destruction of art as a historical act, as well as with its very integration in historiography, also goes hand in hand with the confusing or erroneous use of the terms that accompany such acts. In the events of 2020, the terms toppling, vandalism and destruction are most commonly used in the international press to describe these acts. Which term is best suited, taking into account the fact that the destruction of monuments not only pertains to their reception or re-signification, but also the conditions of their creation, since these two areas are interrelated?29 The term vandalism, historically referring to the Old Regime and the French Revolution, tends to acquire the meaning of thoughtless destruction, a ‘barbaric’ action, void of sense. Vandalism was also the term selected by historian Louis Réau to name the first history of that kind available to us, with the clear intention of making destruction an exception to or even a deviation from law and order, as well as reducing it to a barbaric act inappropriate for the French people, and originating from Germanic tribes or other northern peoples.30 Conversely, the term destruction does not possess any significative reference beyond the pure act of destruction seen within its synchrony, without suggesting the cause. Equally or even more descriptive is the term toppling, which, alongside the term overturn, also contributes to the impression of subversion of the existing rule. Nonetheless, the term iconoclasm seems to come closer to describing acts of destruction with political motives: traditionally associated with religious signifiers and legitimisation of destructive acts, this term has been associated with the reasonable expression of an aggressive act that is more befitting of the BLM case,31 without completely investing it with the concept of purge that characterises these recent acts. In an article that she wrote for the Scientific American, historian of ancient art history Verity Platt reminded readers of the term damnatio memoriae, perhaps frighteningly appropriate in the case of the BLM movement.32 It is an analogy of the French épuration, we may argue, of purification of the public discourse and the rule of law from subjects that have undermined democracy and are unworthy of conversing with the public space and discourse in democratic times. But just like in the case of the 28. For David Freedberg, for instance, iconoclasm was a synonym for censorship. 29. Gamboni, p. 14. 30. See Réau, ‘Introduction’, t. 1, pp. 13-25. 31. For more details about the historic use of the terms, see also Gamboni, pp. 22-26. 32. Platt [accessed 25 October 2020]. 79 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING Image 5 Protesters tore down a statue of Edward Colston and threw it into Bristol harbour during a Black Lives Matter rally [Credit: PA Wire]. condemned authors of the épuration, it is inevitable for the debate to be triggered by the personalities represented by the statues since names associated with a slaveholding past have been injected into current affairs. Destruction: an aesthetic act? This recent iconoclasm at times acquires nuances of aestheticisation. Artist-activist Bansky surfaced last June in the news to propose his own approach, or solution to dealing with controversial monuments. The artist was referring to the widely media covered events in his supposed home town of Bristol, where civil rights protests also took place in recent months: at the end of May 2020, the protesters tore down a bronze statue representing Edward Colston, a slave trader of the 17th century, and then disposed of the statue in the Avon River (Image 5). Seen by some as a philanthropist and despised by others, Colston’s statue had been a source of controversy ever since it was erected in 1895.33 On 9 June 2020, Bansky posted on his Instagram account: What should we do with the empty plinth in the middle of Bristol? 33. Cf. Dresser [accessed 25 October 2020]. 80 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Here’s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don’t. We drag him out the water, put him back on the plinth, tie cable round his neck and commission some life size bronze statues of protesters in the act of pulling him down. Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated.34 His public comment was accompanied by the publication of an ambiguous drawing depicting Image 6 British artist Bansky proposes what to do protesters at the same time with the statue of Edward Colston [Credit: seizing and ripping the statue Bansky/Instagram]. from its pedestal (Image 6). Even though the artist is famous for his eccentric destruction of works of art,35 his acts or intention to destroy do not bring about novelty. Throughout art history, the aesthetics of destruction and ruin have nourished many generations, from German romanticism and the Dada movement to the futuristic utopia of demolishing museums. In fact, the art worlds of occidental modernity did not only go hand in hand with, but have often forged destruction in favour of novelty and subversion of the reigning bourgeois aesthetical order. As in every turbulent period of the modern era, during the BLM movement, the use of caricatures is activated in order to infiltrate a larger public more directly.36 The activist movement ‘Decolonize this place’ published on its page a caricature titled ‘How to take down a monument’ (Image 7), depicting two groups of people opposite one another, trying to overthrow an obelisk with the inscription ‘racist monuments’. The drawing is accompanied by written instructions for the safe overthrow of the monument, with this additional information adding a funny note to the act of destruction. It is obvious that, as opposed to other political events that nourished caricature, in the case of the BLM movement, the dilemma of whether the destruction of monuments is right or wrong is not posed at all, while the caricature itself is not accused of timidly mocking 34. @banksy, Instagram account, https://www.instagram.com/p/CBNmTVZsDKS/?hl=en, 9 June 2020. 35. See on this matter the artwork Girl with a balloon at Sotheby’s auction house in London where the work was scheduled to be destroyed right aſter its sale for $1.4 million. 36. Cf. Gamboni, ch. 6. 81 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING the action: its function has changed and now tends toward incitement, as if the image was constructing the reality that follows. The process of decolonisation Art history, museology, as well as art exhibitions have all been under reformative pressure in the past two decades, a pressure deriving from the wave of globalisation and decolonisation that swelled at the beginning of the 90s. In this context, demands to decolonise museums are now becoming not only global but also imperative.37 In 2018, the hiring of a white woman (Kristen Windmuller-Luna) as Image 7 Instructions and drawing on Chief Curator of the African collections in the how to overthrow a monument. [source: Brooklyn Museum triggered a massive decolonizethisplace.org]. demonstration and the establishment of a special decolonisation commission.38 This event was the culmination in a series of deliberate choices and events aimed at challenging white supremacy in the field of culture. The commission, supported by 16 antiracist, liberating, anticolonial and queer organisations, was rooted in the activist organisation ‘Decolonize this Place’ headquartered in New York. A quick look at the well-designed blog of the organisation reveals their commitment to emergent issues concerning the management of art collections of indigenous peoples in public spaces and museums. It made clear that ‘the crisis currently enveloping the museum cannot be resolved by a deliberation between arts experts’.39 Certainly decolonisation does not only concern the scientific community and museums; its field of action has in the past year extended to all domains of everyday life and its degree of infiltration varies from country to country: Decolonize this place, your music, your mind, your curriculum, your syllabus, your diet…, winking at those who speak of an attempt by neocolonialist policies to highjack the movement.40 37. See the special issue ‘De-colonizing Art Institutions’, OnCurating, 35 (December 2017). 38. Demands varied from recognition of the contribution of indigenous art to the museum and the decolonisation of its objects and staff, to the de-gentrification and participatory management of its collection. 39. See ‘Brooklyn Museum, we await your response to the call for a decolonization commission’, https://decolonizethisplace.org/bk-musuem. 40. See Hardt and Negri, Empire, and Hardt and Negri Declaration. 82 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU University institutions, with greater awareness of historic procedures, have oſten started by claiming to have removed elements reminiscent of a traumatic past. Indeed, from Princeton University and the erasure of the name of its benefactor Woodrow Wilson on the grounds of the exclusion of black students, to the famous ‘Rhodes must fall’ movement to tear down the statue of British politician Cecil Rhodes in Oxford University, the decolonisation process requires methodologies, theoretical discussions and debate to which the most important institutions (museums and universities) in the West have committed.41 The BLM activist movement, with its violent protests in recent months, has not only managed to systematise more long-delayed decolonising actions, but also to convey to a larger part of the population the necessity to broaden the representation of black, indigenous and other under-represented communities. In fact, according to the National Register of Historic Places, less than 8% of the 86,000 places included in the research feature any monument related to African-American heritage,42 confirming that it has been impossible for these communities to appropriate public space. Many of the statues that have caused outrage within black, queer or indigenous communities and were kept from destruction have been relocated to museums where they can live a second life. There, following a targeted, decolonised curation, the mayors of each city are hoping that experts will find the explanations that they have been unable to offer to clamouring crowds. How can a monument that has been designed for the public space create an appropriate interaction within the confined space of the museum, carrying a priori its own interpretations, evaluations and categorisations? ‘Rather than attempting to rescue monuments, why not invent strategies for further dismantling racist structures?’ was the reasonable albeit idealist question asked by the author of the article in the Fair Observer.43 The elimination of racist discourse concerning artworks, public or not, seems to have a long way to go since, as we have already suggested, the hierarchical, regulatory discourse goes back to the origins of their creation, as well as the creation of museum collections. Although the 1980s – in particular through the spread of the post-colonial theory – represented a great opportunity to promote indigenous communities and the black diaspora throughout the world, as witnessed by important exhibitions and theorists that have emerged from this trend,44 the multifaceted inscription of histories of colonialism on bodies, museums, archives or in the public space make decolonising 41. Cf. Mutumba [accessed 25 October 2020]. 42. Quoted in Linn-Tynen, p. 259. 43. Rachel Spence, ‘If a Statue Offends My Sister, It Also Offends Me’, Fair Observer, 2 July 2020 <https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/rachel-spence-black-lives-matter-movement-ukstatue-debate-colston-clive-churchill-news-13331/> [accessed 25 October 2020]. 44. See ‘The Other Story’, curated by Rasheed Araeen. The curator himself had taken a clear stand against ‘racism, inequality, and ignorance of other cultures’ in Britain during the Thatcher era. 83 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING activities methodologically complex and time-consuming. While state authorities agree that the exhibition of controversial statues should be moved from public squares to museums, many journalists are asking whether museums are indeed the best home for them.45 Nonetheless, their questions suggest a misunderstanding regarding the role of museums as warehouses, or as safe, yet cold places, protected from the possibility of vandalism. The rampant globalisation of the 21st century has increased the visibility of local societies and individuals, involving them, oſten reluctantly, in a wider scope of action, adaptation and interaction.46 At the same time, however, it has broadened awareness regarding the updating of institutions and culture, in an attempt to eliminate racism, as well as, in a certain sense, to achieve moral restoration and equality as part of decolonisation. Decolonisation, as a process of sharing power and social empowerment of the subaltern, not only concerns the present and the future, but also the past. Therefore, it offers perhaps a great opportunity for the stories of the monuments to be reassessed and reinterpreted, and for local and global history to converse. Given that, in the case of public spaces, the location of each monument is as important as its erection, a contextualisation that will allow citizens to participate in the narrative in which the monuments are involved over time is deemed necessary. Fred Wilson’s exhibition ‘Mining the museum’ constitutes, as of 1992 in the Maryland Society in Baltimore, an early example of that kind of decolonisation of public space and museums47 which could serve as a model for current dilemmas. Thus, while the act of destruction is not as familiar to (art) historians as creation, under the BLM movement a new case of iconoclasm has re-emerged, one that requires an interdisciplinary approach, one generated by historic racism against the black and indigenous communities of America and European countries with a colonial past. The epuration indirectly demanded by the movement has demonstrated the important role played by collective heritage in the formation of personal identity. A collective heritage which, in turn, is not one but many, through the visual representations of which citizens not only identify the continuation of their histories, but also ensure their relation with the present. Other than the erection of monuments that will restore local history and create a new collective memory,48 the contemporary management of problematic monuments can be addressed by art history as part of decolonisation. 45. Merritt [accessed 25 October 2020]. 46. Patrick O’Brian, ‘Global History: Interactions between the local and the global’, Review no 648 in Reviews in History, 29 February 2008 <https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/648>. 47. See ‘How Mining the Museum changed the Art World’, BmoreArt magazine, 3 May 2017 <https://bmoreart.com/2017/05/how-mining-the-museum-changed-the-art-world.html> [accessed 25 October 2020]. 48. As in the cases of the North Carolina Freedom Monument (2008) and the Middle Passage Monument (1999) by Michael Walsh, as described in Ater, pp. 20-23. 84 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU The demand for the decolonisation of public spaces converges at many points with that of museums, since what is at issue in both cases is essentially the visibility of various identities. As part of the revisionism also engendered by globalisation, public monuments are no longer as invisible as Robert Musil believed them to be.49 Societies change, and with them the meanings of their symbolic representations. 49. As the Austrian author wrote in The Man without Qualities in 1928, ‘There is nothing in the world as invisible as a monument’. 85 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING References Aldrich, Robert, ‘Commemorating Colonialism in a Post-Colonial World’, E-rea, 10.1 (2012) < https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.2803> [accessed 16 October 2020] Allain Bonilla, Marie-Laure, ‘Some Theoretical and Empirical Aspects on the Decolonization of Western Collections’, OnCurating, 35 (2017) <https://www.on-curating.org/issue-35reader/some-theoretical-and-empirical-aspects-on-the-decolonization-of-western-collecti ons.html#.X5mN4C8Rq-o> [accessed 16 October 2020] Allain Bonilla, Marie-Laure, ‘We promise to decolonize the museum: A critical view of Contemporary museum policies’, Aſterall (7/1/2019), <https://www.aſterall.org/online/wepromise-to-decolonize-the-museum-a-critical-view-of-contemporary-museum-policies#. 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Statues and Slavery in London’, History Workshop Journal, 64.1 (Autumn 2007), 162–199 <https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbm032> [accessed 25 October 2020] Elkins, James, ‘First Introduction’ in Art and Globalization, ed. by James Elkins, Zhivka Valiavicharska, and Alice Kim (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), pp. 1-4 Finkelpearl, Tom, Dialogues in Public Art (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: The MIT Press, 2000) Freedberg, David, ‘The Fear of Art: How Censorship Becomes Iconoclasm’, Social Research, 83.1 (Spring 2016), pp. 67-99 Freedberg, David, Iconoclasts and their motives (Maarseen, 1985) Gamboni, Dario, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution (London: Reaktion Books, 2018) Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (ed.), Lincoln on Race & Slavery (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009) 86 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Hardt M., and A. Negri, Declaration (New York: Argo Navis, 2012) Hardt M., and A. Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001) Kaufman, N., Place, Race, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation (New York: Routledge, 2009) Latour, Bruno and Peter Weibel, Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (Karlsruhe, ZKM/Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 2005) Levinson, Sanford, Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2018) Linn-Tynen, Erin, ‘Reclaiming the past as a matter of social justice: African American heritage, representation and identity in the United States’, in Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction, ed. by Veysel Apaydin (Chicago: UCL Press, 2020), pp. 255-268 Merritt, Elizabeth, ‘Are museums the rightful home for Confederate monuments?’ American Alliance of Museums (AAM), 3 (April 2018), <https://www.aam-us.org/2018/04/03/aremuseums-the-rightful-home-for-confederate-monuments/> [accessed 25 October 2020] Michaud, Éric, Les Invasions barbares: Une généalogie de l’histoire de l’art (Paris: Gallimard, 2015) Mignolo, Walter, ‘Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom’, Theory, Culture & Society, 26. 7–8 (2009), pp. 1-23 Mitchell, W.J.T, ‘The Violence of Public Art: ‘Do the Right Thing’’, Critical Inquiry, 16 (Summer 1990), pp. 880-899 Mutumba, Yvette, ‘Why Decolonizing Institutions ‘Has to Hurt’’, Frieze, 6 (July 2020) <https://www.frieze.com/article/yvette-mutumba-why-decolonizing-institutions-has-hurt> [accessed 25 October 2020] Peffer, John, ‘Censorship and Iconoclasm: Unsettling Monuments’ RES 48 (2005), pp. 45-60 Pinder, Kymberly, ‘Introduction’, in Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History, ed. by Kymberly Pinder (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 1-9 Platt, Verity, ‘Why People are toppling monuments to racism’, Scientific American, 3 (July 2020) <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-are-toppling-monuments-toracism/> [accessed 25 October 2020] Réau, Louis, Histoire du vandalisme : Les Monuments détruits de l'Art français. Tome I : Du Haut Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle. Tome II : XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris: Hachette, 1959). Southern Poverty Law Center, ‘Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy’, 2019 <https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbolsconfederacy#executive-summary> [accessed 16 October 2020] Ternon, Yves, ‘Penser, classer, exclure. Origine du racisme biologique’, Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah, 183.2 (2005), pp. 17-47 87 POLITICAL MONUMENTS FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY: MEMORY, FORM, MEANING Tuhiwai Smith, Linda, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (London & New York: Zed Books, 2012) Upton, Dell, What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Upliſt, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) Warnke, Martin (ed), Bildersturm: Die Zerstörung des Kunstwerks, (Frankfurt, 1977) Weibel, Peter, and Bruno Latour (ed.), Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002) 88 KATIA PAPANDREOPOULOU Thoughts on the fate of public monuments during the BLM movement: a request for epuration in the decolonial era Abstract Ever since the outbreak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in May 2020, monuments, squares and statues associated both with the Confederation Period and the fundamental colour-based racism of the United States, have been targeted by protesters. Destruction, whether as an act of epuration or an act motivated by politicalaesthetic criteria, acquires the characteristics of contemporary iconoclasm aiming not only at diminishing the visual memory of the slave-holding and racist past, but also at broadening the acknowledgement of black and indigenous identities through their representation in cultural heritage. Reconsidering the beginnings of racism in the discipline of art history on one hand, and the historical issue of the toppling of monuments on the other, this text aims to situate the destruction and urgency of the monuments’ removal within the socio-ideological process of decolonisation of public spaces and museums as part of globalisation. Keywords BLM, monuments, racism, decolonisation 89 Contributors to the Volume*1 Alifragis, Stavros Architect Engineer; PostDoc research fellow; Adjunct Academic Staff, Hellenic Open University Kotsopoulos, Sophocles Αssistant Professor, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Bolonaki, Stella Postdoc Researcher at the National Technical University of Athens Margari, Eleni PhD, Department of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Dakolia, Konstantina PhD, Department of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Diamantopoulou, Evangelia Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Moschonas, Spiros PhD, Department of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Papandreopoulou, Katia PhD in Art History, University Paris I - Panthéon, Sorbonne Dordanas, Stratos Assistant Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia Polyzoudi, Archondia MPhil, PhD, University of Cambridge; Archaeologist at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture Foundouka, Iokasti PhD candidate, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Poulou, Maria Art Historian, M.A. – Cultural Department of the Municipality of Nikea Ioannidis, Konstantinos Associate Professor, Department of History and Theory of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts Teneketzis, Alexandros Assistant Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Patras Kalogirou, Nikos Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Tsironis, Theodosis Historian, PhD, Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Thessaloniki History Centre of Thessaloniki Municipality Kechagia, Dora Theatrologist; Curator; MA History and Theory of Art & Exhibition Curating, University of Ioannina Yoka, Lia, associate professor of history and theory of art and culture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Korres, Konstandinos PhD candidate, University of the Aegean Zervou, Artemis Art Historian, Curator, National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum * Academic/professional status of the contributors at the time of publication. 319