Monument

Pluralism, part of the Artspeak in the 80’s, is a word seldom used now. It seemed to justify the fracturing of prevailing art movements and encourage doing, well, whatever you wanted, even if it seemed retrograde.

So I looked it up and of course it denotes a diversity of views and stands, rather than a single approach or method. Click it in Wikipedia, and you wade into a pluralism of pluralist definitions:

You have Legal Pluralism, The Pluralism in political practice and theory, such as Pluralist Democracy, where you have a political system with more than one center of power (sound familiar?). There’s Philosophic Pluralism that says many basic substances make up reality, and Value Pluralism- the idea that several values may be equally correct and yet in conflict with one another. There’s Religious, Cultural, and even Cosmic Pluralism, that believes in numerous other worlds beyond earth. Who knew, then, that when Post-Modernism poked up its head back then, skeptical of grand narratives or ideologies, that this multi-cultural movement comprised of multi-faceted agendas would soon follow, and degrade into such a free-for-all?  Never-mind what Andy Warhol said, about everyone in the future being famous for fifteen minutes. We’re entering a world, where, in the future, everyone will be their own minority. Perhaps that will be a good thing - leading to a shared collective consciousness - where everyone will know everyone else’s name, rank and intentions - where human nature will be taken for what it is - that there’s always going to be a conflict between the truth of beauty and the will to power:

MONUMENT

When they took down the statue of Columbus in a New Haven park and left the pedestal, the base, the stand; it so sat in the craw of the enclave of dwindling Italian holdouts, that it seemed to them like a slap of arrogant power in their face. Committees were formed to deal with the locals as they vented their anger at the violation of the sacred efforts of their ancestors, who commissioned it to celebrate the anniversary of their newfound country. Protests on two sides of the issue often made the New Haven evening news.

Its whole reason for existence now came into question. It now appeared as an eyesore to some, this rusticated pile of stones fitted one on top the other with nothing to show on top of it.

It felt like a coincidence that I had just come across an article in Art Forum from 1967. Jack Wesley Burnham wrote about the disappearance of the plinth, the pedestal and the stand in the advent of Modernism. He stated that it was, “a concept that once helped create an aura of distance and dignity around a favored object but now had lost its reason for being…If the base was rendered meaningless, both physically and psychically - sculpture could only regain its meaning free of its confines”. He further argued that, “now that its favored object has been rendered meaningless, it was in danger of disappearing completely.”

But this was all unbeknownst to a young man who one day, not knowing what he had come upon, and not knowing very much about Modernism in particular or even having any idea of the removed statue. He was merely struck by the beauty and craftsmanship of the remaining stonework. The integrity of the structure awoke in him a respect - even reverence, for its physical presence. The sharp angles of its large chiseled stones, locked together in a lopped off, interrupted pyramid, seemed to invite a tactile response. It stirred in him an almost religious awe and he wondered at first if this were not a monument to some mystical cult - wondering at the skill and efficacy it took for some unknown masons to construct such a thing. Who possessed the resolve to complete such a labor of love? Perhaps there was no longer anyone still living, capable of making such a thing today. Perhaps, he pondered, would the day come when there might not be anyone left even capable of appreciating its beauty?

As he walked around to what he found to be the front of the monument, he discovered what he was beginning to suspect - that below the place where a bronze plaque was torn off and leaving an ugly scar, he detected, chiseled onto the foot of the stone mass, the worn but still-visible dates, 1492 -1892 - the 400 year anniversary of the so called Columbus discovery.  It still seemed to take him by surprise though.

He became flushed with a feeling between shame and anger, that this statement of support with no ideal to prop up, this noble symbol of stability that no longer had a function in unstable times, should sit fallow and stripped of meaning.

After ruminating for a day or two at home, he began to see the monument as a blank slate. A start. He wanted to celebrate it in its own right - as a solid foundation for the beginning of an aspiration.

Hie wanted to at least come up with a temporary solution - provide it with some meaning that would both reclaim and reassign the monument with a fitting purpose.

Then one night, or really at an early morning hour, he returned to the park, climbed the fence surrounding the monument…He had crafted a lovingly carved wooden sign, to fit over the scar where the bronze plaque had been removed.

It read:

THIS IS A MONUMENT TO

ALL THE IMMIGRANT STONE CARVERS,

STONEMASONS AND BRICKLAYERS

WHO HELPED BUILD OUR COUNTRY