“Cornpone’s Craven Retreat”?
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“Both statues will be placed in storage. The stone bases will be left in place and removed later.” - from the CNN article on the removal
There is a pedestal near my home in New Orleans that used to have a statue of the Racist Traitor who gave his name to Racist Traitor Parkway. It has become a pretty cool series of revolving installations. Sometimes that installation’s a couch. Sometimes it’s a person dressed up like a carrot dancing for a friend with a camera. Sometimes it’s a big crescent moon. And currently it’s a bunch of blood-red silhouettes holding up a drumhead that appeared on Juneteenth.
I suspect that last may persist for a while. Maybe it’ll become the permanent resident, sitting there where Canal crosses Norm Francis Parkway, across from the empty pedestal that used to hold a bust of the first rich asshole from Louisiana who bought a commission and died for the dream of keeping slaves.
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Looks like evil universe Chris Elliot.
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It took me a second to figure out which racist traitor statue you meant. We had plenty. There was also Racist Traitor Circle of course, and let’s not forget that it wasn’t until the 1990’s that we removed the following inscription from the base of the Liberty Place monument. (It was near the Esplanade end of the French Market):
McEnery and Penn having been elected governor and lieutenant-governor by the white people, were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine (colored). United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.
ETA: and the racist traitor statue in Jackson Square is still standing
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In London, there is an official programme of temporary sculptures on a plinth that stood empty for over 150 years.
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They could build stairs, let tourists pose on the plinth, and just rake it in.
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A Twitter account of a walking tour of these Charlottesville monuments. It puts them into context of the town’s history, physical space, and design aesthetic.
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There’s a place for them: find the “Lenin forest” of toppled Soviet statues.
They’d look great there.
Oh shit. That’s whats going to happen. Its not even a question. It’s just a question of which red state is racist enough to host it? Which is the racistist? The smart money is on South Carolina or Alabama.
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Hmm.
I realize that
but…
I can think of no better art-as-metaphor moment than to melt these statues down and use them to cast metal parts (replacement parts or otherwise) for bridges.
Bridges.
Construction.
Despite being superseded by steel in an array of construction-related applications, bronze still preserves its place in some of them. For instance, many movable bridge components, wheels in worm drives, and turntables for bridges are made of a certain type of bronze…
or… hammers… (and bells)…
… Modern safety tools such as hammers, mallets, and wrenches, are also made of a type of bronze. These tools were originally made of steel, but because of the risk of fire or explosion caused by the unsafe sparks steel can make, steel was replaced with bronze.
Give the hammers to the descendants of enslaved people in the U.S.
Give the bells to the Black churches that want them.
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
ETA: OK all you grant writers and makers and idled Burning Man artists, get busy!
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Acres upon acres of graves do that [commemoration] for us. That’s enough of a monument that we don’t need the statue.
ETA: relistened and corrected Beau’s quote.
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I was disheartened to hear the wealth gap in the US has surpassed what it was in the gilded age, but perhaps we can forge a new bronze age…
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If you put up statues of the traitors who lost the war… that’s a participation trophy, bud.
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I’ve always suggested making a giant bust of a scowling Sherman, but this sounds nicer.
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I see what you did here
Or how about if we just remove the top two-fifths of the statue.
Call it a “Three-Fifths Compromise”
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Leave the horses, take the riders.
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