metropolis m

Beroemde Britse kunstenaars zijn blij met de verwijdering van de koloniale bronzen, zoals momenteel het geval op veel plekken in de UK en elders op de wereld. In The Guardian uiten ze hun gedachten erover en niemand is er erg rouwig om.

“Memorialisation,” says Jake Chapman, “is always the preferred fiction of history. I suspect that most of us pass by public monuments with a blind indifference that’s only equal to the violence they mask. They go unnoticed in the same way that power goes unnoticed. Implicit in the image of civilisation is the myth of bloodless progress. 

“But, every so often,” Chapman says, “they become the brunt of popular anger. Out of nowhere, they become synonymous with the power they represent, functioning as surreptitious objects of rage. You wonder whether such monuments are constructed out of durable materials to endure the weather – or the violence that rises up to mock them.”

Meer in The Guardian