Black Lives Matter protests : Why are statues so powerful ? By Kelly Grovier BBC 12 th June 2020 After statues around the world were defaced as part of the Black Lives Matters protests , Kelly Grovier looks at why some monuments provoke powerful reactions . What are statues for ? The recent destruction of monuments in Britain and the US – from the toppling in Bristol , England , last weekend of a bronze sculpture commemorating the 18 th - Century British slave trader Edward Colston , to the defacement this week in Boston , Miami and Virginia of statues venerating Christopher Columbus and Confederate leaders – raises intriguing questions about the very purpose of public statuary . Why are we compelled to create such likenesses in the first place ? More like this : - How Britain is facing up to its hidden slavery history - The iconic civil rights photos that still resonate - The powerful images of Hong Kong ’ s protests The defacements in the US and the de - pedestaling of Colston , whose effigy was roughly rolled through the city streets by Black Lives Matter supporters before being dumped in a harbour , comes in the wake of the murder last month in Minneapolis , Minnesota , of an African - American , George Floyd , by a white police officer , who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck . Floyd ’ s slow eight - minute asphyxiation , captured on video by a passerby , has prompted passionate protests across the world and has added fresh urgency to campaigns demanding the removal of statues that glorify figures whose reputations ( and fortunes ) were built on the crushing of peoples of colour and the stifling of indigenous cultures . Protesters tore down a statue of Edward Colston and threw it into Bristol harbour during a Black Lives Matter rally ( Credit : PA Wire ) In recent years , several monuments in the US that commemorate military and political leaders of the defeated southern Confederacy ( which fought to preserve slavery in the 1860 s ) have been dismantled or relocated , whisked away from public view . The fall of Colston in Britain is part of a fresh wave of expeditious extractions washing across the West . Earlier this week , Columbus was not only beheaded in Boston but torn down by ropes both in Minneapolis , Minnesota , and in Richmond , Virginia , where the 15 th - Century explorer ’ s effigy was dragged to a nearby pond and drowned , Colston - style . A makeshift tombstone that read ‘ Racism , you will not be missed ’ was placed at the water ’ s edge . A statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston was decapitated this week ; its head was later recovered by the police ( Credit : Getty Images ) Fearing the acceleration of similar purgings in the UK , leaders across the political spectrum raced to denounce the destruction of Colston ’ s statue and to caution against the ripping down of any others . In a rare instance of synchronised messaging , the UK ’ s Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel and the leader of the opposition , Labour ’ s Sir Keir Starmer , agreed that the attacks should be condemned , as thousands gathered in Oxford to demand the removal from Oriel College of a stone statue of Cecil Rhodes , a British supremacist who enriched himself by exploiting Africa ’ s people and resources . At the time of writing , Rhodes ’ statue , which stares through a protective mesh like a captured beast , still teeters in the balance – inviting the world to reflect on what the appropriate fate for such relics of imperial plunder ought to be . The Venus of Hohle Fels is made of mammoth ivory and is the earliest known example of a depiction of a human being in prehistoric art ( Credit : Alamy ) To answer that question , perhaps it ’ s worth considering why statues exist in the first place and how we are hardwired to connect with them . The earliest - known material likeness of a human being , a small statuette of a female body discovered in a cave in Germany ’ s Swabian Forest in 2008 , may offer clues about the essence of our impulse to create such things . A mere 6 cm ( 2 . 4 in ) in height and carved from woolly mammoth tusk 40 , 000 years ago , the so - called Venus of the Hohle Fels crudely exaggerates the features of a woman ’ s body and is thought to have served as a fertility totem . From their earliest inception , statues were less about the individuals they depict than about how we see ourselvesBut it is not what the figurine , which demanded hundreds of hours of patient scraping to carve , depicts that is ultimately so revealing , but what it neglects to portray . The prehistoric craftsman who slowly sculpted this hunk of ivory into shape made the extraordinary aesthetic decision to leave the object without a head . Where the neck should be , a small eye - hook loop , through which a string or strip of leather could be threaded , has been painstakingly sculpted . Dangling from a necklace , the statue ’ s head is that of its wearer , who imaginatively completes the figurine by merging with it . From their earliest inception , in other words , statues were as much conceptual as they were material – less about the individuals they depict than about how we see ourselves . Just how engrained that instinct is – to perceive an aspect of oneself in the image of another – is impossible to measure . Such an impulse may explain why it is so agonisingly difficult to tolerate the persistence of memorials that venerate past masters of pain . Theirs is a suffocating weight . The outrage that many feel about having to share the streets with such hulking ghosts of oppression is deep and crushingly real . To address the thorny issue of how best to handle monuments whose aura an appreciable proportion of society finds toxic , countries have begun to adopt a variety of different strategies . The statue of merchant slave owner Robert Milligan was covered by Black Lives Matter activists in London ; it was later removed by the Canal and River Trust ( Credit : Getty Images ) In London , the capital ’ s mayor , Sadiq Khan , has announced the convening of a special commission to debate the dismantling ( and erection ) of the city ’ s statues . In the US on Wednesday , the Speaker of the House of Representatives , Nancy Pelosi , hoping to pre - empt a violent plundering of Capitol Hill , called for the swift removal of 11 statues that commemorate Confederate leaders . “ The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans , expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation , ” said the California Democrat in a statement , explaining her decision . “ Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals . Their statues pay homage to hate , not heritage . They must be removed . ” British street artist Banksy came up with a proposal for what to do with the statue of Colston ( Credit : Instagram ) Is amputation the best cure for this disease ? The problem , of course , in submerging mementos of a painful past in the nearest body of water is things , especially painful things , have a tendency to re - emerge from the murky deep . The British street artist Banksy , whose own work routinely dredges the shallows of society ’ s intolerance and forces us to confront uncomfortable shapes of hypocrisy and inequality , proposed this week an ingenious solution to the quandary that society finds itself in . “ What should we do with the empty plinth in the middle of Bristol ? ” , Banksy asked in a post on his Instagram account . “ Here ’ s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don ’ t . We drag him out the water , put him back on the plinth , tie cable round his neck and commission some life size bronze statues of protestors in the act of pulling him down . Everyone happy . A famous day commemorated . ” As Banksy ’ s accompanying drawing ( which wittily imagines a precariously repositioned Colston , faltering forever on the verge of collapse ) suggests , what ’ s tricky is finding the right balance when ‘ catering ’ to the diverging perspectives of everyone in society who must bear the weight of a statue . In Germany , where decisions long ago had to be taken about how the Nazi era would be fossilised in the material memory of the nation ’ s streets and squares , it was resolved that erasing the past was not an option . Rather than polluting the municipal air with monuments to the perpetrators of pain , however , efforts have been made to preserve instead memorials that honour the fortitude of Hitler ’ s victims . Perhaps we should think of statues the way we think of trees . When one is found to be disfigured by disease we should resolve to plant a fresh copse , one that cleanses the atmosphere and doesn ’ t choke our breath .