Art, Monument, and Memory: An Introduction
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Art, Monument, and Memory: An Introduction Alicia Caporaso1 Published online: 31 August 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract People visit historic sites, museum exhibits, and commemorative objects and places because they are tangible representations of historic events. Individuals, internally defined groups, and communities of all sizes form culturally meaningful connections to these sites through the process of ‘‘monument building’’—the creation of concrete and abstract, tangible and intangible creative, artistic works. These artistic works in turn purposefully function to perpetuate the memory and ascribed meaning of a site, and the events that took place there and/or the people with whom they associate it. They also function to fix particular interpretations of the site—whether an associated event was good or bad, moral or amoral, ethical or unethical—particular truths, based in evidence or not, that are important to the artist or commissioners of the work. That this can be contentious is evident, and this contentiousness can be amplified when the sites in question are those associated with traumatic events such as military battles and shipwrecks. Keywords Monument Memory Commemoration Art Shipwrecks Battlefields
In 2003, I gave a presentation to an undergraduate mechanical engineering class on the USS Maine where I provided a history of Spanish/Cuban/American relations in the late nineteenth century and the role of the vessel stationed in Havana harbor. When I spoke of the night of February 15, 1898, I said something to the effect of, ‘‘Then the vessel suddenly blew up.’’ There was an audible gasp throughout the room. I was taken aback at the response, then someone chuckled and said that no one expected me to say something that dramatic. I asked the class whether anyone had heard of the loss of the warship, its role as a catalyst for the Spanish-American War, or Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain! The room collectively shook its head ‘‘no.’’ One hundred and five years had passed since the loss of the USS Maine and the lives of 260 sailors, yet I was surprised that no one in the class had knowledge of the tragedy. A century ago, most Americans would have known about the USS Maine. The vessel and the event were highly commemorated, including formal public burial ceremonies, reinternments at Arlington National Cemetery, and the erection of prominent monuments in both the USA and Cuba over several decades after the war. & Alicia Caporaso 1
New Orleans, USA
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Journal of Maritime Archaeology (2020) 15:251–260
But perhaps I should not have been so surprised. Relatively speaking, these monuments are not famous. They are not destinations of modern public reverence. They are not archetypes of historical artistic forms or associated with a notable artist. Nor are they a focus of modern public debate and discourse. Active remembrance and memorialization of tragic events, even those of significant political, economic, and social importan
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