Art has been a medium of protest since time immemorial.
Climate change spares no one, not even the giants of history. This weekend past, a six-foot-tall wax statue of former US President Abraham Lincoln melted in parts, thanks to the ongoing heat wave in Washington DC. The wax Lincoln was installed in the Garrison Elementary School, the site of Camp Barker — a refuge for formerly enslaved people during the American Civil War. It is part of a series of artworks by artist Sandy Williams IV that explores forgotten Black histories in America. Unfortunately, the intention behind this piece was shrouded by the barrage of memes on social media that followed after an X user posted a photo of an almost lounging Lincoln.
The interpretations of his pose — or repose — ranged from work-related irritation to heatwave jokes and double entendres. But what stood out in the responses was the people’s engagement with it. Artworks present in museums and galleries are expected to be viewed from a distance. They are hallowed spaces, intended to awe and dazzle, but rarely to initiate a dialogue. Yet, there are more ways to engage with art than respectful distance. Following the George Floyd murder in 2020, for instance, Black Lives Matter protestors in the UK’s Bristol, threw the statue of the 17th century slave trader, Edward Colston, into the canal. It was a reckoning with the country’s tryst with its colonial past, whose fallouts continue to plague the West.
Art has been a medium of protest since time immemorial. But that is merely the artist’s form of dissent or self-expression. For the vast majority of the art-uninitiated — dismissed so often with superciliousness as philistines — just viewing “the greats” in intimidating spaces is not enough. The democracy of social media has allowed the experience of the heat wave — of climate change — to be reflected in the wilting and melting of Lincoln’s statue. It ensured that in the memes that followed, people’s lives were mirrored as much as Williams IV’s artistic vision.
