The Public as Sculpture: From Heavenly City to Mass Ornament

North, Michael

doi:10.1086/448564

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Unlike static, mimetic monuments, which tend to relegate the spectator to a position of passive contemplation of an already given meaning, the Ojo que Llora activates the viewer, making her or him a pivotal participant in the generation of meaning. Like many contemporary memorials that banish any overt mimetic figuration, the Ojo que Llora casts the process of bodily enactment back onto the spectator, making ‘the public part of the sculpture itself’ (North, 1990: 877). The memorial elicits performative repertoires of perambulations, glances, movements, gestures, and participatory actions – embodied behaviors situated in space and time, and choreographed by the memorial’s labyrinth even as those winding paths allow for spontaneous variation.…”

Section: Aesthetic Memorialization and Embodied Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

An aesthetics of the human: Peru’s Ojo que Llora memorial

Greeley

Orwicz

2019

Visual Communication

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This article examines the role of an aesthetics of memorialization in symbolic reparations for victims of gross violations of human rights. By looking at the production, aesthetics and reception of the Ojo que Llora (Eye that Cries), a memorial cited as a symbolic reparation by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Castro Castro v Peru (2006), the authors investigate tensions around concepts of 'victim', 'perpetrator', and the blurring of the lines between those two categories. In doing so, the article considers how the Ojo que Llora came to embody varying definitions of victim, perpetrator, and the human as these came into tension across legal, political, social, and aesthetic fields.

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Section: Aesthetic Memorialization and Embodied Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

An aesthetics of the human: Peru’s Ojo que Llora memorial

Greeley

Orwicz

2019

Visual Communication

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“…More importantly, such audience gestures on the spot are often captured in a variety of representations, become embodied iconicity of the memorial in our symbolic world, and influence the ways in which we make sense of the memorial. At this moment of representation, when audience bodies are incorporated into the sceneries of a memorial, “the public becomes the sculpture” (North, 1990: 861). Without space, such a moment would not be possible.…”

Section: The Rhetoric Of Statue: Contextualizing In Time and Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Standing between intransient history and transient memories: The statue of MacArthur in South Korea

Choi

2012

Memory Studies

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Since its inception in 1957, the statue of General Douglas MacArthur at Incheon City in South Korea has been a robust signifier of the American rescuing mission during the Korean War that originally was meant to evoke gratitude among the South Koreans. Yet, South Korean activists in 2005 took iconoclastic actions against the statue, calling the public's critical attention to both MacArthur's actions and to the role of the United States during the Korean War. This case study of MacArthur's statue reveals two processes at work: first, how a statue, in a time of transition, transforms itself from a mere signifier of intransigent history into a reflexive medium of transient memories of a past event and second, how a statue, in its surrounding space, can embrace the conflicting gestures that audiences from two different generational and ideological positions simultaneously perform. I conclude that a statue, reconfigured in time and space, has a strong potential to become a dissenting medium that effectively reemerges subversive memories to confront consensual notions of a past event.

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“…Although the term 'public art' is sometimes used to denote guerilla art, it is used in this paper to mean sanctioned art in a public place. Twenty years ago, North (1990) described this established idea as a defining and pervasive concern that could be found at both popular sites and high art domains.…”

Section: Public Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guerilla art, social value and absent heritage fabric

Harris

2011

International Journal of Heritage Studies

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There is extensive commentary on the role of unauthorised art, but little on the coincidence of heritage value and guerilla art. This paper analyses the relationship of the two in a 2007 statue which is a monument to a lost place for which there is no surviving historic fabric. The statue functions not just as a place of memory, but of guerilla art; a complex interplay has emerged between an official piece of government art and unsanctioned community performance. Growing heritage emphasis on social value over the previous dominance of original fabric suggests that the delight with which the statue has been greeted illuminates evolving heritage philosophy, monument language and the emergence of the importance of the heritage community especially for its potential performance value at a site. The dramatic contribution that the statue has made to the city has an impact on the fields of landscaping, planning, history and heritage.

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The Public as Sculpture: From Heavenly City to Mass Ornament

Cited by 16 publications

References 1 publication

An aesthetics of the human: Peru’s Ojo que Llora memorial

An aesthetics of the human: Peru’s Ojo que Llora memorial

Standing between intransient history and transient memories: The statue of MacArthur in South Korea

Guerilla art, social value and absent heritage fabric

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