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# Louisville Will Review Public Artworks to Identify Those "Honoring Bigotry"
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/louisville-review-public-art/
- Published: 2017-08-14T19:21:34.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:40:55.000Z
- Description: The directive comes from Mayor Greg Fischer and is in preparation for a community conversation regarding the monuments’ display.
- Author: Claire Voon
- Tags: In Brief, Public Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/08/castleman.jpg)

Statue of Confederate officer John Breckinridge Castleman in Louisville, Kentucky (photo by w.marsh/Wikipedia)

Yesterday, Greg Fischer, the Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, [announced](https://louisvilleky.gov/news/mayor-calls-review-all-public-art-preparation-community-discussion-about-their-place-city?ref=hyperallergic.com) plans to review the city’s catalogue of public art to highlight monuments that “can be interpreted to be honoring bigotry, racism and/or slavery.” His remarks arrived a day after white nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis violently swarmed the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville to protest the city’s [decision](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-virginia-city-votes-to-remove-a-confederate-statue-but-doing-so-may-prove-difficult/2017/02/08/519042da-ee3e-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5%5Fstory.html?tid=a%5Finl&utm%5Fterm=.394f9adee71e&ref=hyperallergic.com) in February to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The hate-filled rallies ended with [at least one death](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) and dozens of injuries — and, for many, put on full display the reasons we need to tear down the countless [Confederate monuments](https://hyperallergic.com/the-norths-role-in-supplying-the-south-with-confederate-monuments/) that still stand in the US today.

“I recognize that some people say all these monuments should be left alone, because they are part of our history,” Fischer said in a release. “But we need to discuss and interpret our history from multiple perspectives and from different viewpoints. That’s why a community conversation is crucial.”

The announcement also followed local news that an equestrian statue of Confederate officer John Breckinridge Castleman had been [vandalized overnight](http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/08/13/cherokee-triangle-statue-confederate-officer-vandalized-following-charlottesville-violence/563012001/?ref=hyperallergic.com) with orange paint, along with its historical marker.

The forthcoming review is in preparation for a “community conversation” regarding the monuments’ display, and marks the start of what will no doubt be a lengthy and tense project. The Louisville Commission on Public Art has previously organized such conversations: last year, it held a public meeting to [discuss possible relocation](https://insiderlouisville.com/metro/speakers-at-commission-on-public-art-weigh-in-on-where-to-relocate-confederate-monument/?ref=hyperallergic.com) sites for a 70-foot-tall Confederate monument that had stood outside the University of Louisville since 1895\. Following a legal battle, a judge had ruled that the memorial could be removed; it ended up in the nearby town of Bradenburg, which [welcomed it](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/kentucky-town-rededicates-confederate-memorial-moved-from-louisville/2017/05/29/be1c7972-44b6-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fterm=.1bf5ea34b44c&ref=hyperallergic.com) with a rededication ceremony.

Louisville’s mayor isn’t the first to announce a commission to study public Confederate monuments within his jurisdiction (nor would he be the first to remove them; New Orleans [dismantled](https://hyperallergic.com/first-of-new-orleanss-confederate-monuments-comes-down/) its four statues this spring). In June 2015, Baltimore’s former mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake June announced the creation of a similar commission to review the four monuments in Baltimore City, which resulted in [a 34-page report](http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/ce643a%5Fdec453d9aee640848c62dd23a3fb8764.pdf?ref=hyperallergic.com) identifying key steps for their removal. The plans to relocate them stalled over time, but Mayor Catherine Pugh took [steps today to move forward](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-pugh-monuments-20170814-story.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) with the process after the clashes in Charlottesville. (Former NAACP President Ben Jealous also [suggested](https://twitter.com/ourrevolution/status/897159370378797056?ref=hyperallergic.com) today that the city’s monument to [Roger Taney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%5FB.%5FTaney?ref=hyperallergic.com) be replaced with one to Frederick Douglass.) This past June, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney also created a commission to consider the Confederate-era statues on his city’s controversial Monument Avenue. The [Monument Avenue Commission](https://www.monumentavenuecommission.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com), however, believes that the statues should remain and that it exists to receive public input on how to better contextualize them. This morning, Stoney [reiterated](http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/mayor-stoney-richmond-s-confederate-monuments-should-stay-with-context/article%5Fb8cbb743-410f-520f-9197-2a58450d128a.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) his position that the monuments should not be removed.

Alongside Fischer in Louisville, at least one other Kentucky mayor has taken a more definitive stance this weekend to fight bigotry: Mayor Jim Gray of Lexington announced that he will ask for permission to remove statues of Confederate general John Hunt Morgan and 14th Vice President John C. Breckinridge, a slaveowner, from the lawn of a former courthouse.

“The tragic events in Charlottesville today have accelerated the announcement I intended to make next week,” Gray [tweeted](https://twitter.com/JimGrayLexKY/status/896485194957561858?ref=hyperallergic.com) on Saturday. “Tuesday I will ask Council to support Lexington’s petition to the Ky Military Heritage Commission, a required next step. Details to come.”

**Update, 8/16, 4:52 pm:** Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney [announced](https://twitter.com/LevarStoney/status/897928382918348802?ref=hyperallergic.com) today that the Monument Avenue Commission will now consider “removal and/or relocation of some or all confederate statues.”