Sarah Urist Green: In the American South, communities and politicians have spent decades debating whether or  not to remove Confederate monuments. Those in favor of keeping the monuments claim that they represent Southern heritage and the nation’s history more broadly. Those against argue the monuments glorify the institution of slavery and promote racism today. Still, others find themselves somewhere in the middle: not wanting to celebrate this dark history, but concerned about the implications of erasing the past.

In 2020, the debate boiled over as protests across the country following the murder of George Floyd led to actions against— and in some  cases, destruction of—many Confederate monuments. Regardless of whether we’re talking about a statue of Robert E. Lee, a provocative billboard, or a massive stone carving– public art is contentious and polarizing.

But why? What makes public art such a battleground? Hi!

I'm Sarah Urist Green, and this is Crash Course Art History.

[1:06] [THEME MUSIC] 

[1:13] Sarah: Public art is, well, art in public. The word comes from the Latin “publicus,” meaning “of the people.” Public spaces are shared—accessible and open to everyone. It can be three-dimensional, like monuments, installations, and sculptures. Or it can be two-dimensional, made on the side of a building, on stair risers, or in an alleyway.

It can even be live, like a performance or an event. Public art can be permanent, like the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. Or it can be temporary, like the grotesque puppet shows of New York City subway performer Kalan Sherrard.

It can also be somewhere in between, like graffiti, which has no fixed dates but usually isn’t around forever. We’ll be talking more about that and other forms of unsanctioned public art in the next episode. But as ever-present as public art is today, the idea of “the public” hasn’t been around forever.

Only in the 18th century did people start thinking of themselves as a public when more began to gather in social spaces like pubs and museums to enjoy art, music, and literature. Around the same time, they also began to share their thoughts and ideas through the growing print industry. This process led to our modern understanding of the general public as an audience for art, rather than only the elite.

Because public art uses  common space and resources, we relate to it differently than we  do to art in a museum or a gallery. It seems to be saying something not only to us but also about us—often in overtly political ways. Which begins to explain why public artworks can be so very controversial.

In fact, one of the most contentious pieces of political public art is also one of the most recognizable. I’m talking about Mount Rushmore—which has a way more complicated origin story than you might think. In 1923, in an effort to increase tourism in South Dakota, state historian Doane Robinson suggested a rock sculpture honoring the Old West, including the faces of Native American and  settler figures, to draw people’s attention.

But Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor for the project, had other ideas. He wanted a national monument that would draw people from across the globe—carved on the side of the massive Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills. His new design would become iconic: four U. S. presidents, representing the founding, expansion, development, and preservation of the country, looking out in triumph. The six-story-tall faces would take fourteen years, hundreds of workers, and a million dollars to carve before it was completed in 1941. But there was one major perspective left out of this massive art project: the Indigenous Peoples whose land it was built on.

To the Lakota, the mountain is known as Tunkasila  Sakpe Paha, or Six Grandfathers Mountain. It’s a sacred place, located on land which the U. S. government broke a treaty to steal.

Around the time of the monument’s construction, the Lakota tribes sued, and finally, in 1980, the Supreme Court agreed, offering them millions of dollars. They didn’t accept the money, with the belief that the return of the Black Hills would be true compensation. Two of the presidents honored on Mount Rushmore were enslavers, and the other two were a part of the western expansionism that killed  Native people and drove them off their land.

Even Borglum himself had ties to the Ku Klux Klan. So, it's no surprise that Indigenous people and people of color have had complicated relationships with the monument. In fact, several Indigenous-led  protests have occurred there, including one on the occasion of a Trump rally in July 2020.

And while Mount Rushmore is still a popular tourist attraction today, people disagree about how to move forward. Some advocate for its removal, and others its recontextualization alongside information about violence against Native Peoples. Others support the creation of a counter-memorial.

Just fifteen miles away, there’s an in-progress carving of the Lakota leader Crazy Horse, first started in the 1930s. So there’s no clear answer yet, but the conversations are still happening. And the U. S. isn’t the only country facing debate over its political public art. As recently as 2018, the world’s tallest statue was erected in the western Indian state of Gujarat. And holy guacamole, that thing is seriously huge!

Named the Statue of Unity, it’s dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Deputy Prime Minister of India, following its independence from Britain. But unity around a public artwork is hard to find. Some critics argue that Prime Minister Narendra Modi erected the statue as an essentially empty gesture, meant to gain political favor, since his party largely stands in opposition to the party Patel belonged to.

Others point out that it was built in part from imported materials and by non-Indian workers, despite the prime minister’s promise that the project would bring jobs and  support the local economy. And yet, there the statue stands,  seemingly unbothered by the hullabaloo. And it doesn't look like he's going anywhere anytime soon.

Still, these issues aren’t always set in stone – even if they’re made from it. [wink] Debate over public art often swirls around questions of not only what we want to remember, but  also how we want to be remembered. And these ideas tend to shift over time as people and cultures do, affecting how we view the public art in our communities. So, what – if anything – do we do with public art  when it’s negatively impacting our communities?

There are many potential paths forward. Art critic Holland Cotter proposed that Confederate monuments could be removed from the public and put into a new context, such as a museum or a Civil War cemetery. There, people could learn about  the history behind these statues, but they wouldn’t project racist  values in the public sphere.

Cotter further suggested that new public  artworks could be erected in their place to celebrate the achievements of historically marginalized people. New public artworks can show how a community’s values have changed. Like, in 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, opened in Montgomery, Alabama, a city that was once  a center of the US slave trade.

The non-profit Equal Justice Initiative commissioned the abstract memorial, which was designed by a team of artists  and architects from the MASS Design Group. The memorial consists of more than eight hundred individual steel slabs, suspended overhead as though hanging. Each one represents a county in the United  States where a Black person was lynched.

The names of the victims  are carved into the slabs. It serves as a reminder of the scale of  racial violence, honoring its victims. And to viewers today, it’s a solemn reminder of work left to be done.

While the National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a new monument, another approach is to create new meaning out of old art. Let’s shift our focus to Poland. By the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Soviet monuments had been removed, but some did survive.

This one of a Berling Army soldier still stands in Warsaw. And artist Kamila Szejnoch saw that as an opportunity. She dangled a swing from the soldier’s hand and invited the public to have a go.

Which totally shifts the meaning of the work. When it was constructed in 1985,  the Polish government would have seen it as honoring the Polish-Soviet army that  helped take down the Nazis during World War II. On the other hand, Polish citizens may have perceived it as government-sanctioned propaganda in a country disillusioned by Communist rule.

But now, the addition of the swing  gives it an entirely new vibe. Szejnoch said the idea “was based on a contrast between the monumental bronze statue and a tiny individual  swung by a big hand of history.” It encourages viewers, or swingers,  to think about how they, personally, relate to larger geopolitical forces. While having a little fun in the process.

And yeah, sometimes public art is good fun. Like, everybody loves Chicago’s famous artwork— “the Bean”—a massive chrome sculpture shaped like, well, a bean. A very shiny bean with a mirrored  surface that reflects you, the city, and the sky all around you.

It was created by artist Anish Kapoor, and it’s officially titled “Cloud Gate.” But the public started calling it the Bean, and… it stuck. Which just goes to show that  art in public spaces is made by an artist but ends up belonging to all of us. In Kapoor’s words, “Public objects have a weird way of morphing.” He believes the millions of people who’ve  taken selfies and wedding pictures with the sculpture own it just as much as he does.

In fact, he calls it “the Bean” now too. Public art reflects not just  what our societies are – and were – but the hope of what they could be. And because humans are immensely diverse, it’s  impossible for public art to represent everyone.

Instead, it represents fragments  of ideas that change over time, and–collectively–helps us piece together the human story. Next time, we’ll learn about the  kinds of public art that occur under less-than-legal circumstances, like graffiti and street art. I’ll see you then.

[10:58] [OUTRO]

Sarah: Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course  Art History which was filmed at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields and was made with  the help of all these dedicated public servants. If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our community on Patreon.