Monumental - by Cat Dawson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Monuments have shifted radically; 1st book to trace the shift to the 1960s & 70s to show how Black, feminist, and queer artists laid the groundwork for rethinking what we monumentalize now"--

Book Synopsis

How recent shifts in social politics have dramatically changed our relationship to monuments.

For centuries, monuments have telegraphed the values and origin myths of dominant culture in public space and on massive scale. They have signaled both who is part of a culture and who is not, often overlooking histories that complicate the stories they tell. Yet in the last 50 years in the United States, the role of monuments has changed significantly. Numerous historical monuments have been removed or toppled, bringing to the fore a long-repressed conversation about the relationship between the monumental landscape and national identity. In Monumental, Cat Dawson takes up the social, political, and art historical causes and ramifications of this important shift.

Examining the conditions that have led to and define this new era, Dawson reveals that these interventions are as indebted to the monumental tradition as they are to representational strategies that grew out of twentieth-century social justice efforts, from the Civil Rights movement to queer organizing during the AIDS crisis.

Since 2014, a new generation of artists has established a groundbreaking role for monuments, calling into question the very notion of what a monument is through novel investigations of how symbolic structures can be made and what stories they can tell. This book tells the important story of that sea change.

Review Quotes

"[An] engaging, provocative book...the book details what the monument has been, what it is today, and widens the reader's lens as to how one might consider the layers of power and nuance at play in work now and in those figures and forms that have lived on plinths for generations."
--New England Literary News

"Exploring the changing role of monuments in the US over the past 50 years and the relationship between the monumental landscape and national identity."
--The Art Newspaper

"Weaving astute commentary with powerful images, Dawson shows how a new generation of historically marginalized people are reimagining the genre with monumental consequences."
--Tribal College Journal

"As we scramble through this terrain of toppled, relocated, mutated monuments or ruminate on those never built, Dawson's book is a timely reminder to question the fundamental utility of monuments -- who are they for, and what work do they actually do?"
--Hyperallergic

About the Author

Cat Dawson works at the intersection of art history and feminist, queer, and trans studies. They are currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Art History and the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Smith College and University Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.