What Does the Statue of Liberty Stand For?
By Aruna D’Souza
Last July, Amy Sherald announced that she was canceling the National Portrait Gallery stop of her solo exhibition American Sublime because of concerns that the Smithsonian Institution had attempted to censor her painting of a Black trans woman, Arewà Basit, posing as the Statue of Liberty.
Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to President Donald Trump, responded to Sherald’s decision with satisfaction. “The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression — it is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration, and national unity that defines the American spirit,” she said in a statement at the time.
But all national symbols, whether flags, statues, or personifications of founding ideals, are precisely that: “abstract canvases for political expression.” Their entire purpose is to function as a screen onto which political ideals can be projected. And, as the political winds shift, so too do their meanings.
Contrary to Halligan’s statement, the Statue of Liberty has never been a stable symbol of “freedom, inspiration, and national unity.”
This article was originally published by Hyperallergic.