An art historian who chairs the Louisville Public Arts Commission said he will leave his post with plans to restore the statue of King Louis XVI, who was graffitied by protesters in 2020 after police killing Breonna Taylor.
Posted in Express MagazineChris Reitz has published two books about painter Martin Kippenberger, accusing the city of Louisville, Kentucky of trying to “delete all evidence” to understand its fifth anniversary 2020 protests. He expressed concerns about the cost of restoring the sculpture, which he called it “unrepairable” and questioned the real motivation for payment.
“There are legitimate reasons to take care of this statue, but, from where I sat, they cannot justify the high-priced label of this care,” he wrote. “It is indeed hard to imagine that anyone would support the fee if the statue was damaged by accident or by God’s actions.”
Furthermore, Reitz wrote: “I fear that the real purpose of these funds is to convey a message that our cities are hostile to anti-political protests and that we prefer to pretend that Ms. Taylor’s killings never happened, but rather face the fact that there is not enough change to prevent this tragedy.”
The statue of the same name in Louisville was destroyed on May 28, 2020, on the day the city released a 911 call from Taylor’s boyfriend and neighbors describing her murder. Taylor was fatally shot dead when police attacked her apartment on March 13, 2020. Later that year, the city of Louisville awarded her family $12 million. An officer who opened fire during the raid was convicted of excessive force in 2024.
The statue of Louis XVI was produced by Achille Valois, a member of the studio of Jacques-Louis David. It was originally established in Montpellier, France in 1829, but the city was not handed over to Louisville by the city until 1966.
On May 28, 2020, a man took off the hand of one of the sculptures. Over the course of the summer, as protests continue to promote the country, long-standing monuments declined, Louis XVI’s statue was graffitied. Eventually, however, Louisville officials decided to evacuate it and raised safety issues.
Since then, the question of how to deal with the statue has been debated. A 2022 survey found that only 60% of Louisville residents believe that the statue represents their values. Research commissioned by the city shows that the sculpture has been structurally damaged before the 2020 protests.
But Louisville officials continue to push for attempts to resume work, even the City Public Arts Commission chaired by Reitz, advises against doing so.
The city estimates the cost of restoring the sculpture and restored it to $200,000. Reitz, a professor of art history at the University of Louisville, said the statue’s “estimated fair market value is only $60,000.” He also claimed that even with the statue restoration, “it can never go back outside” because its marble is so broken.
“The city should have great art,” Ridz wrote. “And I don’t want to stir the pot. Maybe Louisville wants their king back– maybe they don’t mind spending taxes to repair irreparable statues. They just need to do that without me.”
His resignation comes as senior American politicians continue to argue about how best to handle public monuments. In his latest executive order against the Smithsonian institution, President Donald Trump wrote that museums must be committed to “a solemn and uplifting public monument that reminds Americans of our extraordinary legacy, consistently develops into a more perfect alliance, and an unparalleled record of promoting freedom, prosperity, prosperity and human prosperity.” “His order requires politicians to “take action to restore” to monuments taken away in early 2020.
Furthermore, Trump wrote that politicians must ensure that current monuments do not “inappropriately devalue American past or life.”
Some museums have taken different positions. Curator Hamza Walker is preparing to debut a long-awaited performance “Monument” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles this fall. Along with contemporary artwork, the show will feature retired Alliance Monument [their] According to the show’s description, it is a crystallization symbol of white supremacist ideology, whose stubbornness becomes increasingly apparent against the appeal for civil rights. ”
