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With the trend of removing statues of Confederate generals and slave traders -- by force, if necessary -- are there any highly controversial historical figures that you would argue are worthy of that much iron molded in their image? How would you justify that? Who, in your opinion, is truly deserving of such a tribute otherwise? Or are statues simply passé? Maybe we should just stick to naming buildings and bridges in honor of those most deserving?
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Jun 12, 2020 23:53
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| # ? May 7, 2024 17:25 |
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I mean personally I object to the glorification of individuals, history does not happen by the will of an individual, it happens because of tides of need and want in society in response to material conditions. There are some people out there who are good people, but I'd rather if you're gonna put statues up, put them up to represent groups of people, not individuals. Even the best people are backed up by lots of other people who fought for their cause.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:55
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We need someone with a big canon to blow up the three horsemen of the confederacy off stone mountain.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:55
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OwlFancier posted:I mean personally I object to the glorification of individuals, history does not happen by the will of an individual, it happens because of tides of need and want in society in response to material conditions. Groups of people? Like the Terracotta Warriors? I kid! I kid! Good post.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:03
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There are some quite nice ones, even about the world wars.  No one person, just good ideas. Though it is perhaps a bit revisionist about things like exactly how willing the UK was to accept refugees. So you still have problems of them being hagiography. (I also have a personal fondness for soviet statues but that's mostly just because there are some extremely cool looking ones just artistically, but some of the ones that are just of like, workers, those are nice too, plus I'd kinda like this guy just in my room  ) There's quite a few bits of soviet statuary though that's just far more appealing visually than some old fart sat on a horse or just standing there holding a book or something. Like they capture an energy, even if you have no idea who they are they communicate something, it's not just a statue of a dude, it's a statue of an idea. They're much more artistically interesting.    I think a lot of monuments have pretty minimal artistic value, especially if they're of some lovely politician or whatever. It might as well just be a bare column. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 00:14
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Powerful stuff... https://twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1271477217353240583
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Jun 13, 2020 01:42
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That statue of the woman hitting a neo nazi with her handbag is pretty dope. Too bad the town ultimately decided they didn't want it because it 'glorifies violence'  http://www.leninpriset.se/with-the-handbag-as-a-weapon/
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Jun 13, 2020 02:39
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Replace the Statue of Liberty with a 50m 1:1 scale model of Godzilla.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:02
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DrSunshine posted:Replace the Statue of Liberty with a 50m 1:1 scale model of Godzilla. Actually, ol' Lady Liberty is one statue that I'd give a pass. Lots of history and meaning there, even if she's being violated by the White House incumbent.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:10
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindlifresserbrunnen also the frogner park baby fighter
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Jun 13, 2020 21:03
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The Voice of Labor posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindlifresserbrunnen Well, that's not disturbing !!!
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Jun 13, 2020 21:26
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The only statues I approve of are salient iterations of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha.
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Jun 13, 2020 21:31
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Another one that ought to fall... Former Murray State star Ja Morant is asking a Kentucky judge to remove a Confederate monument in downtown Murray. Morant, who was drafted with the second pick in the 2019 NBA draft by the Memphis Grizzlies, led Murray State to a conference championship in 2019. "Murray felt like a second home from the minute I stepped on campus and became a part of the Murray state community," Morant said in a letter to the Calloway County judge dated Thursday. "As a young Black man, I cannot stress enough how disturbing and oppressive it is to know the city still honors a Confederate war general defending white supremacy and hatred." https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29307166/ja-morant-asks-judge-confederate-monument-removed-murray
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Jun 13, 2020 21:48
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CocoaNuts posted:Actually, ol' Lady Liberty is one statue that I'd give a pass. Lots of history and meaning there, even if she's being violated by the White House incumbent. Yeah, honestly it's a great statue and a gift from France, and very historic. They should though, tear down every statue of a Confederate general and erect statues to Rosa Parks, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, instead. In more conservative areas, erect a statue to Abraham Lincoln. Who could turn down ol' Abe??
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Jun 13, 2020 22:23
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DrSunshine posted:Yeah, honestly it's a great statue and a gift from France, and very historic. Lotta dummies in the South still see Abe Lincoln as the "Great Invader". I've got a relative who almost every time I see him tries to convince me the North was the aggressor in the Civil War. And he's in the North. I just don't get it.
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Jun 13, 2020 22:50
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 I did not know this statue existed before landing at the Senegal airport. It is impressive in it's sheer scale, both in physical size and grift, and should be left standing as a testament.
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Jun 13, 2020 23:02
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Delta-Wye posted:
Yeah, I dunno. That guy makes me feel a little self-conscious about my physique. 
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Jun 14, 2020 00:22
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OwlFancier posted:No one person, just good ideas. Are there any statues that don't just represent ideas? What does say, a statue of Rosa Parks really mean? You could say her statue represents the idea that one person can change history, reinforcing the great man theory of history. You could say her statue represents courage in the face of adversity and oppression. Or her statue represents pride in being a black woman. Any observer of her statue could come up with numerous explanations. But likely none of those explanations will say that the statue of Rosa Parks means a human being named Rosa Parks. Like someone just decided to put up a statue of a random person. A statue can't capture the complexity of a human being, it can only capture our collective ideas of a person. A statue is a human creation formed out of human thought and action to represent human ideas. Even if someone just makes a statue for the hell of it, they're representing that idea of art for its own sake in their statue. I agree that we should avoid statues focused on specific famous people because statues of specific famous people reinforce a narrative, an idea, that individuals are the driving force of social change - that MLK just summoned thousands of people to show up in Washington one day by pure magic. But ultimately statues are always just representing ideas. Sorry if I'm being a bore with this argument, I could have just said: 
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Jun 14, 2020 07:04
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I mean I'm sure all statues represent ideas to someone but I also think that you can make statues more or less communicative. Like some rear end in a top hat on a plinth just standing there doesn't communicate anything other than the rear end in a top hat was apparently important enough to get a statue made of them. But you could also make a statue that by its form communicates some energy or action. Everything is subjective, sure, but I'm gonna subjectively say that people on plinths are loving boring to look at and I can't tell 90% of them apart.
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Jun 14, 2020 08:37
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CocoaNuts posted:With the trend of removing statues of Confederate generals and slave traders -- by force, if necessary -- are there any highly controversial historical figures that you would argue are worthy of that much iron molded in their image? How would you justify that? I'm pretty good with former Eastern Bloc countries putting up statues of Freddy Mercury and Bruce Lee because the locals could not agree on anyone else after years of bitter internal strife and warfare.
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Jun 14, 2020 08:54
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CocoaNuts posted:Who, in your opinion, is truly deserving of such a tribute otherwise? Or are statues simply passé? Maybe we should just stick to naming buildings and bridges in honor of those most deserving? OwlFancier posted:I mean I'm sure all statues represent ideas to someone but I also think that you can make statues more or less communicative. Contrast those with the ones where she's standing waiting for the bus, which puts the focus much more on her as an individual. They also seem to be more likely to be on a plinth, raising her up as someone apart from the rest of humanity like she's a goddamn royal or something.
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Jun 14, 2020 16:16
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Or if you want alternative ways to sculpt something related to the civil rights movement you could have like an actual group of protestors or people doing a sit in, people marching and holding placards or sitting and occupying a space, you can capture the same feeling you get when you see people doing it in real life, or in photographs.
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Jun 14, 2020 16:20
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OwlFancier posted:Or if you want alternative ways to sculpt something related to the civil rights movement you could have like an actual group of protestors or people doing a sit in, people marching and holding placards or sitting and occupying a space, you can capture the same feeling you get when you see people doing it in real life, or in photographs. Thinking about the bit about action and energy though, I now want a series of statues of various abolitionist and civil rights campaigners fighting against a hydra made of chains. Just completely erase the actual slavers and their ideological descendants from memory and just have the institutions they championed be represented as this evil that keeps sprouting new heads whenever one aspect of it is destroyed.
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Jun 14, 2020 16:37
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Statues can be neat, and some spaces are practically designed around having one. If it happens to currently be one dedicated to some shithead, which chances are is the case, then just replace it with one of similar scale. Ideally you'd replace them with statues of someone who was the antithesis of the shithead in question, like replacing statues of Lee with evocative statues of liberation. One concept I really like are statues you can sit down with, like Chiune Sugihara's, represented in the act of giving a visa:  http://www.publicartinla.com/Downtown/Little_Tokyo/sugihara.html or Oscar Peterson's:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Oscar_Peterson
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Jun 14, 2020 19:31
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ecureuilmatrix posted:One concept I really like are statues you can sit down with, like Chiune Sugihara's, represented in the act of giving a visa: Every seated statue has been the victim of countless drunk dudes faking getting their dick sucked. I’ve seen it happen to a seated Ben Franklin, a seated newspaper editor, and a seated seamstress. It’s inevitable really unless you make it impossible to stand in their lap
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Jun 14, 2020 19:40
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Just give them an actual dick so they don't have to pretend. *edit* I misread, I thought you said they were blowing the statues, not the other way around.
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Jun 14, 2020 20:06
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FacebookEmpathyMom posted:Every seated statue has been the victim of countless drunk dudes faking getting their dick sucked. I’ve seen it happen to a seated Ben Franklin... Ol' Ben said it was ELECTRIFYIN"!! 
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Jun 15, 2020 01:18
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If you want to drunkenly shag an effigy of ben franklin I don't see why I need to stop you.
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Jun 15, 2020 01:20
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pretty sure ben franklin drunkenly shagged more people than the number of frat boys drunkenly shagging his statue
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Jun 15, 2020 02:51
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Yeah, "group statues" would likely be superior in most cases. Having an actual demonstration/march as a series of statues, where you can actually walk around at eye level with the people portrayed, could be quite powerful. Pretty much the antithesis of the "dude on a plinth" statue in terms of message and effect. The Korean War memorial in DC is like this, anonymous soldiers wandering through the bushes looking grim and wet and cold  I’d love to see the same done for a protest.
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Jun 15, 2020 03:11
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The UK should put up a statue to the guy whose dead body they used to leak the fake plans about the Allied invasion of Nazi territory.Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Lotta dummies in the South still see Abe Lincoln as the "Great Invader". I've got a relative who almost every time I see him tries to convince me the North was the aggressor in the Civil War. And he's in the North. Because there's functionally no cultural barriers between states, so southern nationalism can freely leak into the north, and that's also why there are confederate monuments in Canada.
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Jun 16, 2020 08:04
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Statues can be neat, and some spaces are practically designed around having one. If it happens to currently be one dedicated to some shithead, which chances are is the case, then just replace it with one of similar scale. Ideally you'd replace them with statues of someone who was the antithesis of the shithead in question, like replacing statues of Lee with evocative statues of liberation.  Apparently the helmet also emits wifi.
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Jun 16, 2020 12:17
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Cicero posted:Can also repurpose the statue itself, like what Odessa did with a statue of Lenin. That's cool!
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Jun 16, 2020 14:12
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this was probably posted in the UKMT, but it deserves a mention here too https://twitter.com/HelenJMacdonald/status/1272790032244490240?s=19 the notorious *checks notes* author of Adam Bede
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Jun 16, 2020 17:38
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monument avenue (where all the confederate statues are in richmond) has one non-confederate statue, this extremely bizarre depiction of arthur ashe: its supposed to show him 'giving books to children' because he was a big proponent of literacy. that is not what i take away from it.
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Jun 16, 2020 17:47
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also, to answer the op's question https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/1271136832097595392?s=19 https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/1271137924910850048?s=19
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Jun 16, 2020 18:01
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A list of people its acceptable to build a statue of: Abraham Lincoln Giuseppe Garibaldi Martin Luther King Jr Dexter from Dexter's Lab Eugene Debs Sojourner Truth Frederick Douglass John Brown Peter Falk Harriet Tubman Bruce Lee He-Man Canadian rock band The Barenaked Ladies This is comprehensive. If they're not on the list you shouldn't build a statue of them sorry.
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Jun 16, 2020 18:04
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All statues should be of the guy who invented Tetris
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Jun 17, 2020 01:05
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Feldegast42 posted:pretty sure ben franklin drunkenly shagged more people than the number of frat boys drunkenly shagging his statue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ovvj-YpEM
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Jun 17, 2020 03:38
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 They just put up a dozen more replica statues of Frederick Douglass around town here last year for his 200th birthday. A couple of the ones in front of schools end up with scarves and holiday getup.  Nothing even inherently wrong with mass produced statuary, when it's not of slavers.
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Jun 17, 2020 04:13
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