The Importance of Aesthetics in Controversies over ‘Tainted Monuments'

titleThe Importance of Aesthetics in Controversies over ‘Tainted Monuments'
start_date2023/06/05
schedule15h-17h
onlineno
location_infosalle de réunion
summaryContemporary debates between "removalists" and "preservationists" of monuments (Joanna Burch-Brown 2017 ; Helen Frowe 2019 ; Travis Timmerman 2020 ; T. H. Lai 2020 ; Benjamin Cohen Rossi 2020, among many others) tend to focus entirely on the moral and political-philosophical dimensions of these structures. And aestheticians who have turned their attention to these debates have largely treated monuments as akin to speech acts (Nguyen 2019, Liao and Friedell 2022). Thus, these discussions have tended to ignore their status as material works of public commemorative art. As seen through the lens of art, however, some crucial but neglected dimensions of value emerge : aesthetic, artistic, historical, age and sense of place value. In this paper I offer a values-balancing framework for adjudicating monumental controversies and suggest that in some cases these considerations about the works qua artworks are powerful enough to tip the balance toward preservation or removal.
responsiblesDokic, Arcangeli