It’s good that colston’s statue is on show again – and exactly where it belongs

Ben Lawrence 03 June 2021 5:00am BST I think an end to the madness may be in sight. Since I started writing this column a year ago, I have seen the cultural world gripped by a kind of mania,

growing more and more offended by the dark deeds of our ancestors. The reputations of long-dead figures lie in tatters because their views did not align to modern sensibilities. Nothing has

encapsulated the febrile mood more than the removal of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol last summer by a mob, many of whom were more interested in anarchy than historical correction.

Yet on Friday, Bristol Museums will put the toppled statue of that same philanthropist and merchant – who was involved in the slave trade – on display at the city’s M Shed, as part of a

temporary exhibition. The graffiti daubed on the bronze edifice remains, and a series of placards relating to the events of last summer will accompany it on display. This, to me, feels like

progress: Bristol Museums have got it right. Of course, re-erecting Colston is a brilliant PR exercise. People are bound to flock to see this fallen icon, increasing footfall at a time when

museums and galleries around the country are still desperately trying to recover from the pandemic. But it’s also a wonderful artistic statement. By making the protests part of the

exhibition, Bristol Museums are dehumidifying the situation, bringing an air of reason to arguments that have ricocheted back and forth now for what seems like an eternity. What is happening

in Bristol reinforces my own stance: that statues must remain in order to remind us of the past, but their purpose should not be (as it were) set in stone. History is malleable, with the

reputation of its key players constantly shifting. For years, historiography as taught in universities has shown us that this is the only reasonable way to study the past. And it is the same

with statues – they need to be present and visible to encourage discourse and debate. There are exceptions, and edifices representing those who committed the most serious of crimes have no

place in a public space. If you’re looking at the atrocities committed in the 19th-century Congo when Leopold II of Belgium was the absolute ruler, then there’s a cut-and-dry case for

removing the statue in Kinshasa (which was briefly reinstated in the early 21st century). Not even a few well-meaning words of contextualisation could justify this man remaining on display:

the violence and torture of millions of Congolese during his rule is too horrific to be “contexualised”. That blood-spattered history must be discussed, but in a way that avoids even a

flicker of memorialisation. But in most cases, monuments of public figures need to remain. I wouldn’t make any grand claims for aesthetic beauty, but that’s a matter of history too. The

majority of statues erected in British town- and city-centres are unlovely, but one compelling argument to allow even the ugliest monolith to remain in situ is that it reminds us of past

modishness. For example, I remember visiting Norwich city-centre as a child and being fascinated by a sculpture on Hay Hill of Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th-century polymath who spent much of

his life in the city. It’s a pretty unremarkable piece: a man who looks like Vincent Price in The Witchfinder General, wearing a doublet and hose and buckled shoes, holds a broken urn that

(I suppose) must represent mortality. And yet, when you notice that it was erected in 1905, more than 200 years after Browne’s death, you see that it’s a symbol of Edwardian whimsy; a

cultish romanticisation of the past. Asking why our early 20th-century forebears saw fit to memorialise Browne in such a way brings us closer to them – their slightly twee town-planning is

oddly touching. Those with dubious links clearly pose a different kind of problem, and Colston is a case in point. He was a symbol of Bristol’s prosperity – for which those who live in the

city today should be grateful – but his hitherto unimpeachable position in the urban landscape is troubling. It’s unlikely that any sane person in the 21st century would literally revere a

statue, but Bristol Museum’s decision to reintroduce him into the city’s “conversation” is to question him as a symbol of any form of reverence, reaching out beyond the mythology that

creating a statue of him represents. Compare another story about statues this week. At Oriel College in Oxford, that other figure of moral vituperation, Cecil Rhodes, remains. But instead of

insisting that he “must fall”, the sculptor Antony Gormley has suggested that Rhodes should be turned to face the wall in shame like a naughty schoolboy. The suggestion is faintly

ridiculous, but also rather clever; a means of annotating our heritage, rather than eradicating it. Many statues are unsightly, many more are uninspired, but almost all are worthy of

preservation, even if they aren’t unimpeachable. Events this week in Bristol and Oxford prove that the atmosphere is changing, and creative solutions are possible. Fingers crossed that in

2021, unlike in 2020, common sense will prevail.