Mayor Lightfoot expects the Christopher Columbus statue to return to Grant Park. Not so fast, say some members of the panel studying the question.
to return a controversial statue of Christopher Columbus to its former pedestal in Grant Park.
“It’s great to know the draft report is ready. However, if the Mayor moves forward and reinstalls the Columbus statue, it seems to me that she is making that decision unilaterally, yet our names as a committee will inevitably be attached to that decision,” Rakowitz wrote. “While I have not been present for the conversations with communities, I cannot imagine that this is what we would have decided as a committee.
Asked about the frustrations in the email thread, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events acknowledged that “this has been a long and often difficult conversation, but the Advisory Committee and public should rest assured that their hard and sincere work is meaningful and in no way ‘symbolic.’ ”
That committee’s work has been repeatedly delayed, but a draft report is now complete, the emails show. Its work could present Lightfoot with fraught choices. Part of the commission’s work involved making recommendations for new exhibits, but it also focused on identifying monuments for potential removal.
Monument commission co-chair Erin Harkey, who is also Chicago’s commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, responded to the concern expressed by committee members with an attempt to reassure them — and a plea. [Most read] Chicago business relocation pitch targets ‘Don’t Say Gay’ legislation with full-page ads in Florida, Texas and ArizonaActivists have urged that public art do a better job of representing a broad spectrum of American life, something Lightfoot said the Chicago effort will accomplish.,” a 96-page survey by the cultural affairs department that was last updated in 2014, shows more artwork celebrating mythical women than real women.
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