Winter Lecture Series: Great Monuments

Great Monuments with Professor Dan Breen.

A 5-PART SERIES: Sundays: January 26st, February 2nd, 9th, 23rd, March 2nd from 2-4 pm in the 1st floor meeting room. This a hybrid (live and virtual) program – see links below.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85417305957

Part 1: JANUARY 26st at 2:00 pm:

The First Monuments in Boston 

Believe it or not, there was a time when Boston had literally no public monuments.  All that changed in the 1850s, when Boston not only got its first statue, but also its first statue controversy; a forerunner of the debates about statue removal that continue to take place today in the states of the old Confederacy.  In this presentation, we will explore the reasons why Boston decided it needed to have statues in public space, and why one statue in particular sparked considerable outrage in the years before the Civil War.

Part ll: Feburary 2nd at 2:00 pm

When Statues Don’t Quite Work

What are statues supposed to DO?  That is a much-disputed question, but one things seems certain: it is difficult for statues to serve any constructive purpose when they fail to succeed as works of art.  In our second presentation, we will take a look at a selection of Boston statues that fail as works of art–and also a selection of statues from other parts of the country that fail SPECTACULARLY in this respect.

This a hybrid (live and virtual) program. Click here for the Zoom webinar each week:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85417305957

 Thanks to the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library for sponsoring this program. Free and open to the public.