Photographic Iconoclasm: Lee Friedlander’s The American Monument

On 16 August 2017, the Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, ordered the removal of a monument to Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from Wyman Park Dell, a public park in the centre of the city. With almost no prior notice and no definitive plan for their future, the figures were taken down overnight and moved to an unspecified location. In addition to the monument to Lee and Jackson, Pugh also ordered the removal of the Confederate Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, the Confederate Women’s Monument and a statue of Roger B. Taney, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision in 1857. Although the Taney statue did not explicitly refer to the Confederacy, his ruling that African Americans, both free and enslaved, could not be recognised as citizens is intimately entwined with its history.¹ Citing public safety as her primary motive, Pugh’s announcement came just days...

Allen, Fiona, and Simon Constantine. “Photographic Iconoclasm: Lee Friedlander’s The American Monument.” Oxford Art Journal 43, no. 3 (August 4, 2021): 361–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxartj/kcaa027.