Statue-phobia

JJ Charlesworth | ArtReview | 25th August 2017

Municipal statues are public art that tell a story. So how should the removal of Confederacy – era statues be viewed? Are they suddenly intolerable? Pulling down statues “[embodies] a political attitude which would rather blame the political shortcoming of today on the far-distant past … erasing its traces to sanitise the public realm of any recollection of it … statue-phobia is the worst form of fetishism.”