What's In a Name? : An Artistic Deconstruction of Our Public Monuments

Abstract

A monument not only brings forward into the present the values of the subject it is commemorating, but also the values of those who decided to have the structure built/named. If we choose to make available only the positive elements of the commemorated person or event's legacy, as most of our monuments do, the viewer is only able to place those positive contributions in present context. The negative aspects of the memorialized person/event are left out as well as the political climate in which the monument was commissioned. These monuments are, therefore, presenting an incomplete version of history which threatens to become our culture's collective sense of history over time. All art objects are history tellers as each carries with it, at least, the cultural politics of its time and those of its influences, but public monuments are art objects that are built and/or named with the specific intention of reproducing historical values. It should be our duty as citizens to demand a more accurate telling of history in regards to public monuments if we wish for future generations to learn from the ups and downs of our past. This body of work attempts to shed light on the incomplete nature of several regional monuments as well as offer a version of a monument that presents multiple aspects of a single politician's civic impact.