{"title":"Monumental Absence","authors":"Tess Korobkin","doi":"10.1086/727549","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Augusta Savage intended to build monuments. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the Harlem-based sculptor envisioned memorials to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the vaudeville star Florence Mills, the World War I service of the “Harlem Hellfighters,” and the writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson. None of these proposed works was erected, and they have not been included in scholarship examining Savage’s work and career. This essay considers Savage’s thwarted efforts as critical reminders that material absence does not connote a lack of vision, intention, or labor. I argue that Savage’s unbuilt monuments reveal her ambition to intervene in the Whiteness and maleness of the American memorial landscape and claim monuments as sites where Black lives and concerns can be represented. Engaging critical approaches to archival absence and the power of monuments, I explore the space these unbuilt monuments would have taken up in the world.","PeriodicalId":43434,"journal":{"name":"American Art","volume":"58 1","pages":"48 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Art","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/727549","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ART","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Augusta Savage intended to build monuments. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the Harlem-based sculptor envisioned memorials to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the vaudeville star Florence Mills, the World War I service of the “Harlem Hellfighters,” and the writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson. None of these proposed works was erected, and they have not been included in scholarship examining Savage’s work and career. This essay considers Savage’s thwarted efforts as critical reminders that material absence does not connote a lack of vision, intention, or labor. I argue that Savage’s unbuilt monuments reveal her ambition to intervene in the Whiteness and maleness of the American memorial landscape and claim monuments as sites where Black lives and concerns can be represented. Engaging critical approaches to archival absence and the power of monuments, I explore the space these unbuilt monuments would have taken up in the world.
期刊介绍:
American Art is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to exploring all aspects of the nation"s visual heritage from colonial to contemporary times. Through a broad interdisciplinary approach, American Art provides an understanding not only of specific artists and art objects, but also of the cultural factors that have shaped American art over three centuries of national experience. The fine arts are the journal"s primary focus, but its scope encompasses all aspects of the nation"s visual culture, including popular culture, public art, film, electronic multimedia, and decorative arts and crafts. American Art embraces all methods of investigation to explore America·s rich and diverse artistic legacy, from traditional formalism to analyses of social context.