Monthly Archives: January 2012

Art on the Mall, cont’d

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Briefly noted, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Monuments and Statuary, Washington, D.C.

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Frank Gehry’s proposed Eisenhower Memorial

In November I posted about the controversy surrounding the Eisenhower Memorial scheduled for groundbreaking early this year. The Frank Gehry designed monument will be directly on the Mall, near the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and within easy view of the Capitol Building itself, some prime real estate to say the least. I wrote my masters thesis on Eisenhower and believe him to be worthy of this distinction. Public art is almost always fraught with controversy, something no one understood better that Ike himself. Speaking at the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of Modern Art in 1954 President Eisenhower noted that “as long as artists are free to create with sincerity and conviction, there will be healthy controversy and progress in art.” Controversy can indeed be healthy, moving good ideas forward and pushing bad ones aside. Still, it is this writer’s humble opinion that the design does not suit the subject or the site. Modernity itself did not intimidate Dwight Eisenhower, but the avant garde memorial does not align with how the general and president lived and saw the world around him. Eisenhower’s family has become more vocal in their opposition. Grandson David stepped down from the Commission in December and last week the family issued a letter to the National Capital Planning Commission expressing its disapproval. It will be interesting to see if the projects moves ahead in the face of this opposition.

In other news concerning memorials on the National Mall, the Department of the Interior will change a quotation on the Martin Luther King, Jr. monument to better reflect Dr. King’s words. As currently written the inscription has King saying

“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

In a February 1968 sermon know as the “Drum Major Instinct,” King said

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Critics, including Maya Angelou, believe the paraphrase does not accurately reflect King’s statement. The Park Service will consult with the King family and scholars to create a new inscription.

(image/Eisenhower Memorial Commission)

That cure for the post holiday blues

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in National Park Service

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Looking for something to do this weekend but spent your allowance in December? The National Park Service has you covered. The NPS is waiving fees today through Monday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The winter is a great time to visit your national parks and monuments; crowds are smaller and the vistas are often greater because the foliage is off the trees. Visiting a park off-season makes me feel like a kid getting an extra day off school. The Park Service waives fees several times throughout the year, but keep in mind that many sites never charge for admission. With over 400 to choose from you cannot go wrong.

The Edison National Historic Site in New Jersey is just one national park waiving fees this weekend.

(image/Jim Henderson)

The Battle Abbey of the South

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Museums

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Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia

Those who have been following the Civil War’s 150th anniversary know that the two major purposes of the Sesquicentennial are 1) to correct the mistakes made during the Centennial in the 1960s and, 2) to incorporate the historiographical shifts that have taken place since that time. Historians, park rangers, curators, and others have been working hard the last few years to make this a reality, and no one has faced a harder challenge in these endeavors than officials at museums dedicated to the history of the Confederacy. Some, such as the Museum of the Confederacy itself, have made great strides in recent years, doing much to abandon the Lost Cause narrative that was the original mission of these institutions. Others are working equally hard but finding it difficult to enact change. Budgets have shrunk due to the economic crisis; attendance, a chief source of revenue, has been down in recent decades as younger people have largely stayed away; corporate sponsorship, a staple of today’s museum experience, is next to impossible because sponsors do not want to associate their brand with the Confederate States of America. I have visited numerous such museums across the Deep South and can attest that many, even the smallest, contain valuable artifacts worth preserving. (The most poignant for me was the one in rural Arkansas that my father, who died three years ago, drove me sixty miles to visit.) I predict that those that refuse to change in any way–and there are many–will eventually become so anachronistic that they will disappear for good. Louisiana’s Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall is trying to make the transition.

(image/Voice of America)

Happy New Year

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Everglades National Park

The Hayfoot and I returned from Florida this afternoon. We had a good time visiting my mother, laying on the beach, watching bad tv, and just relaxing after a long semester. Now we are ready for a good 2012. A few things I am looking forward to beyond blogging and spending more time with my wife now that she is out of grad school are

the reopening of The New American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

visiting Gettysburg and Antietam in June,

catching the exhibit on Jews and the Civil War to be held at the American Jewish Historical Society/Yeshiva University this spring,

meeting my six week old niece for the first time later this winter.

Here is to a fun and productive 2012.