[On November 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in Washington, DC. So for its 40th anniversary, I’ll AmericanStudy the Wall and four other unique examples of public art. Share your thoughts on these & any other public art projects you’d highlight!]
On the
inspiring messages and missing histories of two linked statues.
Sculptor Marshall Fredericks
(1908-1998) lived for much of the 20th century, and for much of the
century’s second half was the nation’s preeminent creator of public statues and
monuments. He created his first such public sculpture, the Levi L.
Barbour Memorial Fountain on Detroit’s Belle Isle, in the 1930s, but it
was after his time in the Air Force during World War II that Fredericks
completed the majority of his numerous, prominent public projects. These
include Christ
on the Cross at the Indian River (Michigan) Catholic
Shrine; The Freedom of the Human Spirit for the
1964 New York World’s Fair (now relocated to near the US Tennis Association’s Arthur
Ashe Stadium); the Man and the Expanding Universe Fountain at the US
State Department’s Washington, DC headquarters; and the two Midwestern statues
on which I’ll focus for the remainder of this post: the Spirit of Detroit at the city’s Coleman A. Young
Municipal Center; and the Cleveland War Memorial Fountain: Peace Arising
from the Flames of War (also known as the Fountain of Eternal Life).
Both of
these beautiful public statues/memorials feature inspiring, spiritual messages
that clearly reflect Fredericks’ perspective and voice. Spirit of Detroit, dedicated
in 1958, features a plaque that reads, “The artist expresses the concept
that God, through the spirit of man is manifested in the family, the noblest
human relationship”; in his left and right hands the figure holds symbolic
representations of God and the human family, respectively. The War Memorial Fountain, dedicated
six years later in 1964, features a central figure escaping the
flames of war and reaching for peace, and surrounds him with (per Fredericks’
own statements about the statue) symbolic representations of an interconnected
world: a bronze sphere that (like the sphere in the left hand of Spirit) reflects spiritual beliefs and
stories; and four granite carvings that embody the world’s civilizations. These
overarching messages and ideas would be important and inspiring in any setting,
but certainly especially were in the depths of the Cold War, the strife and
divisions of the 1960s, and other historical and cultural contexts of that
post-war period.
There’s
nothing wrong with public memorials and art that present such overarching
messages and themes, such universe images and ideals. Yet at the same time, my
favorite public statues/memorials, like the Salem
Witch Trials Memorial, link broader themes to specific, local
histories and conversations, and on that level I’m not sure these two
Fredericks statues quite succeed. The War
Memorial did include on its framing rim a tribute to the 4000 Greater
Clevelanders who gave their lives in WWII and the Korean War (and has since been
expanded to include casualties and veterans of other wars as well), which
is a definite and important local connection. But outside of those names (and
of course every city sent its own soldiers to those and other wars), I would
say that both statues could be moved to other sites or cities and have
precisely the same messages and themes, largely unaffected by the different
contexts. For a war memorial perhaps that’s fitting, as war implicates and
affects us all, and task of remembering and mourning is a truly shared one. But
for a statue named Spirit of Detroit,
I would argue that at least a bit more specific engagement with that particular
city’s histories and stories, community and identity, would be a positive
addition, one that could complement the inspiring overarching messages and
present viewers with a sense of this unique
American space at the same time.
Next public art
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other public art projects you’d highlight?
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