WEEK 5-6 Flashcards
END OF STATUMANIA…
Statumania ==> traditional monument
from glorifying victories ==> signify the presence of something…. loss is secondary to this.
Grand monuments ==> they dont leave room for interpretation for visitors, force them in an active role.
the counter-monument…
YOUNG (1999) – Memorial spaces are conceived to challenge the very presence of the monument.
Aim is to return the burden of the memory and interpretaion onto the visitors by forcing them in an active role.
Dialogic counter-monuments
Coupled counter-monuments that critique the purpose and the design of a specific, existing monument in an explicit, contrary, and proximate pairing.
Anti-monumental counter monuments and how do they differ from traditional commemorative works?
Monument contrary to convennal subjects and techniques of monumentally
differ in at least 1 way:
1. subject (darker, not affirming)
2. form (abstract, temporary, absence, not removal, grand)
3. site (runs across by chance, unexpected)
4. visitor experience (senses, personal)
5. meaning (ambiguous, require visitor engagement - not ascribed by state, it is up to interpreation)
EXAMPLE: Aschrolt- Brunnen (1987): Kassel, Germany
- hort honeisel
- negative-form monument
Dialogic v. anti-monumental counter monuments
engagement:
DIALOGIC - spark convo and interaction
ANTI-MONUMENT - challenge the very concept of monumentalization
Design
DIALOGIC - often participatory and reflexive
ANTI-MONUMENT - minimalistic, subversive
Tone
DIALOGIC - reflective and questioning
ANTI-MONUMENTAL - critical, deconstructive
Purpose
DIALOGIC - sustain dialogue abt memory and history
ANTI-MONUMENTAL - critiqes the permanence and authority of monuments
BRONZE CEILING
The bronze ceiling is a term used to describe the gender imbalance in public monuments and statues, and the movement to change it….
EX: in central park, 22 statues of men and 0 statues of women. represents a significant divide in female representation.
Significance: lack of women commeorated and when they are, it is often allegorical towards a nation and are often verrrrry objectified
Women and statues traditionally
Represented in a very idealized and objectified and very stereotypical (often associated with saviour, faith, hope etc). Several female characters written by men to men….
represent rather than possess characteristics. As in they represented rights that women did not traditionally have in reality. EX statue of libery - could women vote, own property? NO! It is a different kind of history
In terms of religion - even when historical womena re represented, they are representing the idea of the religion.
Lots of women represented as mothers
significance – women prompted their presence. still representing women in subordinate roles though….
women as allegorical
Allegorical: To describe something as allegorical means it is designed to communicate a symbolic or metaphorical message, often representing broader ideas through specific, tangible forms.
Allegoy of a nation:
Britannia (Great Britain)
Marianne (France)
See this esp when talking abt war…
Canada Bereft (Vimy) 1936.
The Motherland Callls, Volgograd, 1967 ⇒ exhorting nation to greatness
Museums
Displaying and interpreting past and present.
they are STATE BUILDING TOOLS! important for developing consensus across the map.
Educational institutions. the items are very carefully chosen. what they show is limited. always a reflection of a choice….
Museums play acritical role in collective memory because they expect a learning experience.
People usually are receptive to what they are learning ==> why museums are a tool for defining and disseminating a nation’s shared past (according to Benedict Anderson)…
EX: British Museums – Museums = tool for defining and disseminating a nation’s shared past – according to Benedict Anderson
Level of receptiveness
museums are EXTREMELY TRUST WORTHY in terms of information
MODERN museums and some of their turn offs
museums as SOFT POWER
- not direct control over people, influence…
contemporary museums CAN challenge beliefs and invite discovery, but can also:
Reify official histories and power structures
Reinforce inequalities
Naturalize technological advancement
Exhibitionairy complex
- Complex bc have a shared purpose - abt inscribing and broadcasting state power throughout society
- Cultural technology, they are one answer to the question (how a state can control its citizens by consent rather than force - want to get ppl to respect institutions).
Disciplining the public:
Drawing from Michel Foucault’s idea of disciplinary power, the exhibitionary complex also suggests that museums act as spaces where individuals are observed and learn to observe themselves. Visitors internalize societal values through their engagement with exhibits, leading to forms of self-regulation.
Exhibitionairy complex - tools of control and power
The exhibitionary complex highlights how museums are tools of social control, designed to educate the public and reinforce dominant cultural or political ideologies. By organizing and displaying objects in a certain way, museums assert control over knowledge and shape how the public understands the world.
Historically, museums emerged as part of the broader projects of nation-building and colonialism. They often presented cultural artifacts in ways that reinforced ideas of national superiority or racial hierarchies.
FOUCAULT BIPOWER and the PANOPTICON
BIOPOWER = how modern. states control populations (rather than individuals) via soft power methods that are non-coercive methods
PANOPTICON = analogy he uses to describe how states observe / control society
—- one-way observation
—- foucoult uses this as an analogy for how power works in modern societies
- analogy for a self-surveillance society and how societies become self regulating
—– below watcher and watched.
Internalization of norms
still Foucault: BIPOWER and the Panopticon
Museums teach visitors what to value and how to think about art, culture, and history
!!! Foucault’s concepts of biopower and the Panopticon apply to museums because they influence how societies regulate and internalize norms about culture, history, and identity.
What contemporary museums aim to do….
GARDNER READING
Challenge stereotypes
Present contested history
Represents diverse experiences and perspectives
Use individual stories to personalize historical events (for ppl to understand it and understand themselves as part of it - individual stories make a big difference. Emotion is a huge tool in museums)
- in terms of emotion relate to collective effervesence
Present the process of historical interpretation, not just the end product (talk about HOW THEY GOT THERE, how did they get to the conclusion)
Share authority with the public (what is the point of a museum if it does not curate / provide some interpretations? Museums should invite visitors to engage with history) Way of letting public speak back but still in a controlled way.
Colonial lens: what museums do
‘The Museum’s aim is to hold a collection representative of world cultures and to ensure that the collection is housed in safety, conserved, curated, researched and exhibited.
Historical political context of the rise of the modern museum
Increasing European engagement with the non-European world and the steady development of European colonial settlement and imperial political control over the rest of the world, including the americas
Reckoning how BR museum came to acquire its objects – Hans Sloan – collection of 70,000 items essentially founded the museum
Role of slavery in collection…
Kant on racial hierarchy
Thinks everyone has capacity for a reason, but ppl in diff environments are at different stages of development
Theorized race as a concept based on the role of natural predispositions and the related concept of germs
Alienation according to MARX
Marx’s view on alienation: Marx argued that alienation arises in capitalist societies when workers are estranged from the products of their labor, the labor process, their own humanity, and fellow workers, as they lack control over their work and its outcomes.
Significance: This concept highlights the dehumanizing effects of capitalism, framing it as a system that prioritizes profit over human fulfillment, and serves as a foundational critique in Marxist theory, influencing discussions on labor, economics, and societal structures.
CESAIRE FANON on colonial alienation
they emphasize the importance of racial capitalism in colonial alienation.
sources of racial capital:
- religious superiority
- racial superiority
- scientific and epistemic superiority
Talk about how langauge estranges them from the colonial society and their own scoiety.
WHO is alienated according to FANON CESAIRE
- consider how colonization makes the colonizing body view the colonized as animals which in turn, turns them into animals. complicity and acceptance of colonization decivilizes you!!!
role of langauge (FANON)
langauge separates you from the colonized body and the colonizers
DOUBLE ALIENATION!
Use of language to decivilize, primitivize, produce colonial subjugated subject
DISALIENATION
Revolt against the historical situation of french colonialism and racism: a defiant turning of “negre” against the white supremasict who used it as a slur
RECLAIMING civilziation:
Not a project of return or recovery of pre-European past, but about creating a ‘new society’
Remember that they were not just ante-capitalist but were anti-capitalist, democratic and cooperative – so considering the role of racial capitalism in perpetuating continous disadvantageous positioning.
Boomerang effect
Colonization and civilization …
Act of colonization dehumanizes even the most civilized man. It turns them into viewing the other men as animals and so they themselves become animals.
!!!!colonization de-civilizes the colonized!!! ⇒ leads to savagery
Why decolonize museums?
they should never have made museums in the first place!!!
the arugment is that we should have just accepted non-europeans to live alongside us.
there is a strong level of illegitimacy in how artifacts are acquired (slavery, imperialism)
curation for self-affirmation
- we need to be able to articualte clearly our visions for the future, langauge systems etc
SIGNIFICANCE:
Restoring Justice: Returning looted artifacts and acknowledging their histories rectifies historical wrongs and restores cultural sovereignty to the communities of origin.
Rewriting Histories: Decolonization allows for the inclusion of multiple perspectives, challenging the dominance of colonial narratives and creating a more truthful representation of global histories.
Healing and Reconciliation: Museums can become spaces for healing by addressing colonial traumas and fostering reconciliation through honest engagement with difficult histories.
Shifting Power Dynamics: Decolonizing museums disrupts the traditional top-down structure of knowledge production, empowering communities to define their own cultural narratives.
Significance of FANON for decolonization
Fanon argues that colonized people are often made to feel inferior through the imposition of the colonizer’s culture and language. Museums, as institutions, have historically upheld these dynamics by curating and interpreting artifacts through a Eurocentric lens, marginalizing the voices and cultures of colonized peoples.
Language and Representation:
Fanon emphasizes that language is a tool of power and cultural domination. Similarly, museums often narrate histories in the language and perspective of the colonizer, reducing the richness of the colonized culture to stereotypes or decontextualized objects.
Reclaiming Identity:
Decolonizing museums involves reclaiming the narrative, allowing communities to represent themselves authentically. This aligns with Fanon’s call for colonized people to dismantle the imposed identities and assert their own cultural and historical perspectives.
