Comment

Acoustic Guitarist Gareth Pearson Tears It UP: "Blue Smoke"

133
Anymouse 🌹🏡😷2/24/2021 4:43:09 am PST

Wonkette had an interesting article yesterday about a piece of guerilla art (a sculpture) which appeared in a Portland, Ore. park.

Monument Of Black Explorer York Discovered In Portland Park

Last October, a statue of “scowling” Harvey Scott was toppled from its pedestal in Portland’s Mount Tabor Park. Although I don’t support vandalism, this wasn’t a big loss: The conservative newspaper editor was a kind of a jerk. He opposed women’s suffrage and public high schools, which he considered a “luxury” that would serve only as a “haven for drones” and “undermine self-reliance and individualism.” Scott’s sister, Abigail Duniway, is more impressive. She successfully advocated for women’s suffrage in Oregon and was the first woman to register to vote in the state.

Scott’s statue was replaced this weekend with a bust of York, the first Black person to cross North America and reach the Pacific. No one knows how the bust got there. Adena Long, the director of Portland’s parks bureau, calls it “guerrilla public art” — presumably she spells out the word “guerrilla” to avoid confusion — and a “pleasant surprise.”

The New York Times reports:

York, [Long] said in an interview, is “a figure that in my mind that we need to do a better job of proactively and thoughtfully celebrating.”

Ms. Long said that she was not aware of any message about the bust from those responsible, but that it would be allowed to stand so long as it does not pose any safety risks, in line with a bureau policy regarding tributes. “We’re hopeful the artists will make themselves known so we can have a conversation, but it will stay,” she said.

If you have no idea who York is, that’s why we have a 1619 Project. York was William Clark’s “lifelong body servant” whom Clark’s father “willed to him,” like property with a pulse.

(more)