TOPPLING: the slipperiness of a falling monument

Abstract

The topplings of monuments may seem like climactic moments where statues are felled in a dramatic instant. Yet topplings can be far less specific - events that are difficult to define, scattered across time and space. The article focuses on this indefinability of topplings through a wide range of examples from Russia to Iraq. These include unintentional topplings, eternal topplings, and topplings that create more than they destroy. The purpose of this article is to show how, on the one hand, there is a tremendous variety in topplings, and, on the other hand, to propose a way of looking at their commonalities. These commonalities are found in the way topplings unite seemingly contradictory characteristics: topplings are both moments of aliveness and demise; they are the moments when an image is destroyed while sparking new visual experiences; they can be rapid and endlessly drawn out and oscillate between top-down and bottom-up forces. This paradoxical, always transformative, quality may be what makes topplings particularly magnetic.