An Artist Imagines a Statue of Liberty Made from War Rubble
Syrian artist Tammam Azzam's "Statue of (Rubble) Liberty" has gone viral, but, as with most things online, it's not exactly what it seems.
An image depicting a Statue of Liberty-like structure, allegedly made from bombed rubble of Aleppo, has made the rounds of the internet in the past week, with the claim that it was an artwork by Syrian artist Tammam Azzam. The image in question is indeed from a work by Azzam, which in fact goes back to 2012, but it is a digital composition in which different parts of bombed out buildings are assembled together to resemble French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s statue; it is also possible to tell from simple observation that the image is not real (though some netizens, like political scientist Ian Bremmer, apparently could not). The artist, whose work has been in the spotlight in the past for addressing the Syrian tragedy (like when he photoshoped in 2013 Klimt’s “The Kiss” atop a war-ravaged building from Syria), has explained that at the time, the work reflected a measure of optimism despite all the destruction happening in Syria and used the Statue of Liberty as a metaphor for freedom.
Nevertheless, Azzam insists that times have changed, and people are using his image in a context of the conflict that he had not intended: Loyalists of president Bashar Al Assad have used the image to condemn the Syrian opposition’s purported allegiance to the United States, while supporters of the Syrian rebels have used the image as a part of pro-intervention propaganda, or to showcase the resilience of the civilian population in besieged areas. The artist is not affiliated with or embedded in any opposition group, and at present lives in Dubai, not in Aleppo. Different articles have surfaced exposing the misleading nature of the image, while it is still being posted and reposted with the misleading association. The artist has already tweeted an article with the correction.
