by Travis Nygard | 19 May 2010 | Americas, Architecture, Awards, Books, Modern, Museums, News
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has announced that it awarded the annual Eldredge Prize to Kirk Savage for his book Monument Wars. I should disclose that I am far from impartial on this topic–Savage was my advisor in graduate school. That said, I think that his book is notable as a model for future scholarship.
Rather than framing the official monuments, architecture, and gardens of Washington DC as only reflecting agendas of powerful people, Savage shows that they were the result of ongoing public debates. By privileging controversies he wrote a story that is filled with human drama and included the voices of marginalized peoples. We learn, for example, about the struggle for an African American and Native American presence on the Mall. We find out that changes to the Mall resulted in personal loss–a fact that humanizes the geography. We empathize with the people who lived in “Murder Bay”—a neighborhood demolished to expand the public space.
In light of this approach to studying the past, what other places do you think deserve another look? Do you know of other scholarship that has engaged in interesting ways with official public art and architecture? Please comment below.
The Mall is a great topic in the study of public art. It is, in a way, triply public: in a public space, constructed with public funds, and intended to symbolize the public. I look forward to having a look at Monument Wars. I so enjoyed studying nineteenth-century France for my dissertation largely because the art and public spheres were so entwined. And I’ve been fascinated by the recent restoration of the Paris Pantheon’s monumental clock by the underground group UX. The group has also staged clandestine midnight theater performances inside the monument. They have decided, in effect, that the Pantheon belongs to the public and that therefore the public (themselves included) should get to bend the building to its purposes and desires. Within limits of course: I doubt they’d sanction a freelance demolition of the building.