Arts + Culture

ROMAN BRONZES AS SETTLER- BY Justin Han, Amanda Brynn, Samuel Kimball, Kaleb Hood, and COLONIALISM: Abby Wells ILLUSTRATION Mara Jovanovic DESIGN Miya Lohmeier

ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND CLASSICISTS FOR MONUMENT REMOVAL

In late 2019, Brown University’s Public Art Committee Mediterranean—from the Italian peninsula to Anatolia and personality Ben Shapiro also speaks about the proposed to relocate the University’s Caesar Augustus to North Africa. To deny this reality would be to erase origins of Western Civilization: monument to the Quiet Green and have a new arm cast the contributions of those peoples to Greco-Roman “The obvious proof is that the world is for it. It proposed that these actions be accomplished antiquity. However, Rome’s legacy is not divorced from overwhelmingly Western. And, with few via tens of thousands of dollars from a willing donor, race and racial prejudice as we know it today. There is a exceptions, those parts of the world that continuing a chain of multiple restorations that have long history of Western intellectuals imposing modern aren’t aspire to be. Why? Why has Western occurred since Moses Ives Brown Goddard donated racial distinctions onto the past. For example, Thomas Civilization been so successful? There are the statue in 1906 (Goddard’s brother Robert Hale Ives Jefferson defended chattel slavery by discussing the many reasons, but the best place to start is donated Augustus’ counterpart, Marcus Aurelius, to contributions of ancient slaves to philosophy and liter- with the teachings and philosophies that Brown in 1908). On the Quiet Green, Caesar Augustus ature: “Epictetus, Terence, and Phaedrus were slaves. emerged from …Athens.” would peer over the Slavery Memorial, a work Brown But they were of the race of whites.” This anachronistic Tying ideas about Western superiority to Classical commissioned from Black sculptor Martin Puryear use of ancient slavery to defend a vastly different insti- civilization clearly remains part of the cultural zeitgeist in 2014. In response, students have mounted a call tution extends the narrative of whiteness centuries across many populations in the United States, positing to remove two Roman-style monuments on Brown’s before racial distinctions were used as they are today. Classical Athens as an origin point for Rome and campus, including casts of both Caesar Augustus and Beyond Jefferson’s use of classical authors to beyond. These sentiments are not recent in origin— Marcus Aurelius. romanticize and justify the actions of the pre-Civil War they are foundational to our country’s governing

As archaeologists and classicists, it might seem South, Adolf Hitler also famously called the ancient structures. When we see figures from Greco-Roman that we would be those most in favor of maintaining Greeks and Romans the ancestors of his “ideal, Aryan antiquity monumentalized, we must recognize the Brown’s monuments to Caesar Augustus and Marcus race.” Hitler idealized the military power of Greco- intellectual history that they celebrate. These statues Aurelius. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Roman cultures, saying, “The subjugation of 350,000 do not represent a legitimate, nuanced approach to the Rather than passive icons of Greco-Roman ideals or Helots by 6,000 Spartans was only possible because of study of Greco-Roman antiquity. Instead, they repretools for the study of art history, these monuments the racial superiority of the Spartans.” Hitler compared sent an intellectual history developed centuries after are constant reminders of Brown’s violent colonial his empire to the Roman Empire and the Holy the fall of Greece and Rome. We must not replicate a past and present, a colonialism that our disciplines Roman Empire (9th-19th century, neither “holy” nor revisionist narrative rife with historical inaccuracies, in were born out of and remain steeped in. We reject how the Public Art Committee has implicated classics and archaeology in their defense of memorials to settler-colonialism and institutionalized white supremacy. We write today to explain our insistence, as “Roman”), then asserted that his empire was superior. The political and intellectual lineage between white supremacy and Greco-Roman leaders is a retrospective, largely imaginary one. It is by no means a quantifiable connection. which we heroize Roman emperors for qualities they were not monumentalized for. Departmental Undergraduate Group leaders in these The military legacy of ancient figures like Caesar A particularly troubling argument for ‘reclaiming’ subjects, that Brown remove and replace these monu- Augustus and Marcus Aurelius does not negate their these monuments is the idea that we need them ments. Moreover, we call for a broader restructuring in other contributions to history. But in reality, these in order to hold discussions about the contextual arts administration, for donors and committees alike statues, created and placed on this campus in the changes they have undergone—or about colonialism to set their sights on reparative investment in Black and Indigenous lives and careers. early 1900s, have little to do with Roman history at all. Instead, they are part of a centuries-long tradition that presented Roman emperors as ideal white men and claimed the remarkable accomplishments of GrecoRoman antiquity as proof of the superiority of Western at Brown more broadly. The claim that the monuments’ presence will somehow inspire critical discussion has been popular amongst critics of Decolonization at Brown’s call to remove them. Many people at Brown— particularly students, staff, and faculty of color and The field of classics has long been mobilized to glorify civilization. Though these men were not discernibly those whose homes are under active colonial occupaWestern civilization. We must recognize that apologists labelled as “white” in antiquity, they are today because tion—are constantly faced with the everyday realities for chattel slavery and Indigenous genocide were some they have been immortalized as such in the American of colonial violence; they certainly don’t need a copy of the first in our country to center ancient Greece and psyche. We cannot simply reject the identification of a Roman statue to remind them that colonialism Rome in narratives of Western civilization. In such of white supremacy with the Roman elite, nor can a exists. The argument that we need these monua repositioning, we can refute terms like the “Greek contextualizing plaque override that choice. We agree ments in order to ‘remember’ prioritizes the educaMiracle,” which refers to the idea that the ancient that this equation is not grounded in historical fact or tion of students who lack experiences of colonialism, Greeks’ accomplishments were unprecedented across the emperors’ biographies, but this prejudiced view of rather than speaking to the trauma of colonialism. As history. Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle antiquity is a key reason why these monuments must certainly did not ‘invent’ rhetoric or logic, even if Aristotle wrote texts called Rhetoric and Logic. While it is clear that ancient Greece made contributions to many fields of study, the hyperbolic celebration of Greek ideas ignores the contributions, and even the presence, be removed. Brown should instead celebrate intellectual legacies that work to depict the nuances of history. of people from non Greco-Roman cultures in antiq- Recent movements to reframe how we think about uity. Casual readers of classical literature emphasize historical figures and events have been met with Homer’s epics over the Vedas, completed in India long tremendous pushback from right-wing figures. One before the Iliad and Odyssey, and over Mesopotamian of the most salient cases of this pushback comes from texts like The Epic of Gilgamesh. The presentation of Donald Trump himself. On several occasions, the Homer or Virgil as pinnacles of literary achievement President has portrayed Western civilization as needing erases the literary accomplishments of other ancient defense, and himself as the man to defend it. In a 2017 civilizations, which often appear as a pretext to physical speech, he said, “Today, the West is confronted by the erasure. We can trace this intellectual lineage’s phys- powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confiical consequences from European ‘Great Power’ impe- dence, and challenge our interests.” Right-wing thinker rialism to American settler-colonialism, emphasizing Charlie Kirk often decries emerging movements that that the priority placed on the study of Greece and cast doubt on national heroes, and called the President Rome had more than textual or academic implications. the “bodyguard of Western civilization” in his remarks

Ancient Romans did not have the same hierarchical at the 2020 Republican National Convention. This concept of race that we must engage with and overturn “defense of the West” is predicated on preserving the today. Roman aristocrats originated from all around the legacy of Greco-Roman antiquity. Conservative author

archaeologists and classicists who must deal constantly with things that are lost, destroyed, or missing, we see this as a brittle excuse to keep them—we certainly know that discussing things which are not ‘here’ or ‘visible’ is more than possible.

Moving forward, Brown’s Public Art Committee must point a critical eye toward the whiteness and monumentality of campus art and think these features through together. Why are local artists of color (not just RISD alumni), who might benefit so much more from a commission, outside the pool considered? If we were to deactivate the weaponized heritage that monuments to Augustus and Aurelius represent, what objects would fill the void? What can stand instead of a panoptic, military gaze?

As made clear by nationwide debates, such as the open letter recently sent to Boston museums calling for racial equity and social transformation centering Black lives, the insidious influences to be made transparent in arts institutions are countless. Two examples

are art objects’ effectiveness for laundering money their generosity. The only item on the Committee’s and the rich evading taxes through arts investments in budget is the Percent-for-Art program, which gives non-profit institutions. The glaring impact of the ruling one percent of any building’s construction budget to class on arts institutions goes hand-in-hand with the commission artwork. This reliance on donations from silencing of voices of color. If Brown is now responding entrenched power structures has resulted in very selecto other institutions’ pleas (in New England and tive strains of public art on campus. Why should the beyond) for the cancellation of inequitable structures, Committee’s dependence on donations preclude an it does so with limited fanfare. We can only attest to outlet for a more democratic selection of public art? structural changes when they are announced, as with Why are people of color on this committee so heavily the recent hire of Avery Willis Hoffman for Brown outnumbered? And finally, why does Brown choose Arts Initiative (BAI) director. We applaud this decision, conventional monumentality––with either artist or but warn against the opacity of hiring practices. The represented being white and male––over other forms uproar elicited by campaigns like Brown Divest and of sculptural engagement? Warren Kanders Must Go make it clear that University The way Augustus and Aurelius came to campus in finances and fundraising warrant greater, more critical 1906 and 1908, through an opaque donation process, oversight by students and faculty. is analogous to how Urs Fischer’s Lamp/Bear (Blueno)

Art boards and committees, including the materialized in 2016. Since it was first revealed to BAI, David Winton Bell Gallery, and the Public Art great controversy in 2016, Blueno has shed its assoCommittee, must demonstrate greater consider- ciations to the 2008 financial crisis, such that those ation of what donors aim to accomplish through responsible for accepting its loan can characterize it as harmlessly absurdist, comical, or witty. On the contrary, the inordinate sums of money poured into scanning and casting the bear in bronze, and then spent by billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen to purchase the object, should be remembered as its defining features. Monumentality is too often entangled with unarticulated sources of wealth, and we must exercise sharp caution at donations for continuous restoration. To establish a throughline between Blueno and the monument to Marcus Aurelius, all we need to do is question how their scale is possible. How do other artworks the Public Art Committee has assembled on Brown’s campus measure up to this assessment? Looking at the works at large, we find that the Roman emperors and modernist bronzes mutually affirm their usefulness to art-historical tradition, at the expense of any other kind of image or practice in Brown’s public spaces. Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone’s Idee die Pietra, a 27-foot cast bronze tree holding up a granite river stone, speaks for Arte Povera, a 1960s Italian avant-garde movement ostensibly relying heavily on found and common materials. Various iterations of Modernist sculpture also predominate, as in the Henry Moore stationed on the Main Green, while Blueno makes overtures to Dada and Surrealism. These dominant strands of Eurocentric art history are not in urgent need of representation. So what guarantee do we have that this insistently Modernist, absurdist, and seemingly innocuous collection of public art will give way to global urgency? Aurelius and Augustus must go, because they are products equally derived, as Brown’s contemporary sculptural works are, from the insidious romanticization of Western civilization. Those responsible for public sculpture must demonstrate greater prudence, and backing away from the tens of thousands of dollars offered for the relocation and restoration of Augustus would be a start. Moving forward, the Public Art Committee must not arbitrarily grasp at artists of color—for example, those embraced by the global art market and therefore unquestioningly identified with ‘quality.’ Rather, they must seek out local practitioners whose careers might be transformed by a commission from the University. Instead of standing by the mission values put forth on the Committee’s website, as hollow as “providing a gracious, attractive, and stimulating environment” or serving “the cause of donor relations,” Brown must go above nominal proof of diversity and inclusion in its public art. We maintain that public art should not be shelved as a showing of luxury commodities or the contents of donors’ collections. Instead, it has the potential to serve underfunded careers and artistic practices while providing images worthy of serious contemplation. Brown’s public space can mirror its imagination, paving the way for transformation in its curricula and its relationship to the city it occupies.

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We, as Departmental Undergraduate Group leaders in Classics and Archaeology at Brown University, coauthored this op-ed in conjunction with Decolonization@ Brown’s most recent response in the Brown Daily Herald, which seeks to address the claims of an anti-removal op-ed and broader opposition. The first essay written on this subject can be found at the Blognonian.