How recent shifts in social politics have dramatically changed our relationship to monuments.
For centuries, monuments have conveyed the values and origin myths of dominant culture in public spaces and on a large scale. They have signaled both who is part of a culture and who is not, often overlooking histories that complicate the stories they tell. Yet in the last 50 years in the United States, the role of monuments has changed significantly.
Numerous historical monuments have been removed or toppled, bringing to the forefront a long-repressed conversation about the relationship between the monumental landscape and national identity. In Monumental, Cat Dawson explores the social, political, and art historical causes and consequences of this important shift.
Examining the conditions that have led to and define this new era, Dawson reveals that these actions are as rooted in the monumental tradition as they are in representational strategies that emerged from twentieth-century social justice movements, from the Civil Rights movement to queer activism during the AIDS crisis.
Since 2014, a new generation of artists has established a groundbreaking role for monuments, questioning the very concept of what a monument is through innovative investigations of how symbolic structures can be created and what stories they can tell. This book shares the important story of that profound change.
Pages: 256, Dimensions: 15.9x15.9cm
