Nov 9

Nov 9 What is a Monument Anyway?

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The Bossy Mealz Newsletter
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Monuments: Art as Public Memorials

When I was in high school, I would frequently comment to my mother that if I was ever famous enough to have a monument made in my honor, I'd rather pass as it seems most often used as target practice for birds flying by overhead. Beyond the snark of my former teenage self, the reason we build monuments and who we memorialize has rightly come into question.

Top: The Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, VA. Protesters this summer reimagined this memorial in honor of George Floyd as they were unable to remove it, given its size. A judge has recently ruled that it can be removed.
Left: Allison Saar's "Swing Low" memorial to Harriet Tubman in Harlem. It is only one of the five memorials in NYC depicting women out of 150.
Right: A statue of Teddy Roosevelt flanked by a Native American and a African American man was recently removed from the Museum of Natural History.

Monuments to the Confederacy Needed to Be Removed: What is To Be Done with Them?

After a much needed reckoning this summer over historical monuments to past leaders who supported slavery, the Confederacy or the persecution of Native Americans, I wanted to take a moment to consider what is to be done with them.

Some believe the monuments should go to museums, but many cities are not easily able to find a home for them and have simply put them in storage as the NYT reports.
On his personal instagram account, Tom Campbell, the Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, suggested San Francisco create something like a fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, which rotates artworks by local artists (good idea!) Reading the back and forth dialogue with his followers about what to do with the old monuments, however, caused quite a stir.
At one point he suggests that "Museums are places of study, not idolatry." I think many people agree that we cannot simply erase these people and their actions from history, but there is also something about putting them in a museum that feels somehow wrong. A natural history museum feels like a genuine place of study but an art museum has so many more politics that go into it on what art is shown when, by whom. I think part of the larger dialogue around the monuments stares back at art museums themselves as these are institutions inextricably linked to power. For better or worse, museums are not simply places of study.
I am hopeful a national campaign to build new monuments to a diverse set of historical figures will occur in the next presidential administration (not this).

At Home Culinary Escapes

As we are all doing a lot more cooking at home these days, I've been certainly in need of some recipe inspiration. Samin Nostrat's new podcast Home Cooking provides many recipe ideas and her infectious laugh to go along with it.

With all the election stress I have clearly been seeking some virtual getaways, the four episodes of "Chef's Table: BBQ" have transported all of my senses from Austin to Australia.

Fall Book Recommendations

I noted my summer reading list did not represent as broad a set of perspectives on art and artists as I would like, thus I have intentionally chose books about or by artists of color for my fall reading list.