Monuments, Power, and Gender
This article deals with questions concerning gendered aspects of monuments. Monuments are usually defined as memorials, but can also be understood in a wider sense as having to do with monumentality. This definition makes it possible to include sculptures as well as buildings. Both ”monument” and ”monumentality” comes from moneo (Lat.) for remind, remember. This reminding function is perhaps most obvious in regular memorials – monuments of specific individuals – but also when it comes to other forms in the city, which can be regarded as a kind of cultural legacy and a constant and materialised reminder of certain gendered relations. Taking the starting point in some concrete examples – e.g. the monuments of Erik Gustaf Geijer in Uppsala, Gunder Hägg in Gävle and Trump Tower in New York – the article deals with how meaning is created as an effect of height, form, masculinity, position in the city and connotations to capitalism. These meanings are always ambiguous, and sometimes also questioned. Through ironic denominations and subversive scribble we are confronted with the nudity and gendered aspects that the artistic or architectonic genres as well as tradition are perhaps concealing. Hence the naturalized connection between gender, sexuality and power is made visible, and at the same time commented upon and critically questioned.
