Her Holyness, Lady Liberty

On 9/11 2001, right after the second plane hit the twin towers, I remember people all over the world becoming horrified by realizing that an organized attack if happening against New York and maybe Washington, an immediately started to figure out where the supposed other planes (whose number in the resulting communication chaos were 0 to 12, dependent on all different resources) shall strike down. Apart from the convenient Empire State Building, Capitol Hill, White House (which is just to small to be hit) one of the possible targets in people mind become the Statue of Liberty close to the twin towers.
With the Twin Towers, the places of ‘commerce and liberal world economy’ down, should “they” attack the remaining symbols of the Big Apple? Empire State Building is indeed a large building, but never held the same status as the Towers, being some kind of cordial center, the embodiment of western liberal economy, it rather belonged to a prewar, old colonialist era. Empire State Building was ever associated with King Kong, the ‘natural’ beast who would ‘use’ the building than topple it down. We must not have to forget that WTC was target of attacks even before 9/11, amongst which the most notable was the 1993 bombing of Tower 1. And never the less, Twin towers were taller than the Empire…

Why would anyone hit a statue, an idol of United States with a plane? There was some wicked symbolism in the act of hitting the WTC too, as those radicals was looking up to those buildings as “Towers of Satan”, but the sheer magnitude of destruction and the number of lives taken seemed to make the twin towers a more appealing target for the terrorists. Still, when we suspected a least half dozen more “plane-bomb” coming, some of our first thought was that the Liberty Statue could be hit.




A monumental idol for liberty, the Statue always seemed to have an unclear ideological background, despite the fact that it become a beacon of hope for those who emigrated into the new world by naval means- hence, after the war it somewhat lost its significance due to the increasing significance of aerial traffic.
The statue has never become an international symbol of the notion of liberty as such, never the less, the she remained a strong symbol of the United States itself, as a land of freedom and liberty, being some kind of late modernist “empty” idol for a country. I mean empty since we do not have a clear idea what it portrays and why, even if the iconic language of the work is quite clear. The figure who looks like the ancient Greek god Helios woman shaking down shackles (seen at the basement of the statue) and holding” Enlightenment” is a rather straightforward illustration of some fundamental modernist western values, but never become a beacon for these movements, rather is acts as a beacon for tourists willing to by nice little souvenir copies of the original.
Her image was used for propaganda reasons several times during the world wars, but in that context she somehow started to be the embodiment of U.S. late colonialism rather than the abstract idea of liberty.
Her silhouette is not included into the logo of scientific organizations and her iconic language seemed to be rarely cited in the academic debates during last decades, although she held an important status in the pop and counter-culture after the war, symbolizing freedom and liberty as such. And not to forget her role on the 1968 movie hot Planet of the Apes, hence ever since she become the ultimate symbol of the decline of western civilization!


Naturally, the secular modern society does not need a strict code of meaning attached for a statue of any size, even monumental, as we might see from the development of the 20th century art – still it is not coincidence that other public sculptures did not held such an iconic status in the second part of the century. Nobody considers for example Picasso’s public work in Chicago an iconic work of the United States.
Lately, the statue got some importance thanks to its iconological emptiness. Upon attacked, western civil society, or rather United States media and pop culture conjures up her image in defense of its values, somehow suggesting that “freedom, slavery, liberty” become endangered again, and the she might lose her past monument status and become a contemporary “message carrier”.




Two images of her emerged lately, both suggesting that there might be new (or renewed) readings of this monument, although they had different intentions with the modification of the original statue.
The first one is a rather convenient Photoshop modification of the her, by simply changing the traditional, classical Roman woman outfit with a (contemporary) Muslim one, the burqa, worn by woman mainly in the Afghanistan region.

Seemingly an easy internet joke, the notion of redressing a female statue seems to be a quite critical gesture even by the standards of the western high culture. The image is quite simulate in its style and political context as some of the most renowned world-war propaganda posters, in which the portrayed “women” was the “avatar” of the nation or some of its basic principles .

Opposed by the First World War image, which encourages you to buy war bonds for the country, and which portrays a strong, Athena like warrior woman of a libertine society armored with the spectacular weaponry, resembling warriors of the Holy Crusades, the Burqa coverd Statue is rather similar to the woman portrayed on the famous H.R Hopps 1st World War propaganda poster, the victim.
The Muslim outfit image can be either interpreted as a desacralization attempt on the statue as the symbol of liberty or as a victory mark over it – New York conquered by a Muslim force, which promotes woman wearing obscuring clothing.

Don’t forget that idolatry is banned by Islam, as do the exposure of woman’s face! So the ultimate question is: is the veiling of the Statue of Liberty is an act against the female character of the statue or it is against the monument, the idol of liberty? Is the covering of the statue is a rather simple visual joke based on the simple idea that a female figure is the most convenient pictorial target in a global political game between Middle-East and the United States , or a new chapter in a secular-post secular image debate? Lets look at another example to explore this question further.

The other version of Lady Liberty surfaced in Memphis, USA as a heavy modification of the original, holding a giant cross instead of the ‘light on humanity’, and holding the “Ten commandments” (!!!) in her left hand instead of a plate with the date of the founding of the United States.





As the commissioner, a pastor of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church states, this version of the statue conveys all the values of their belief, as so the original which is a gift from the French people to the United States for celebrating the abolishment of slavery. I don’t want to go into serious debate with the reverend over the post-colonial interpretations of this artwork; yet, this modification of the statue is interesting because of the controversy it caused after the reverend stated that it is stand for "letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation."

One of the commandments (mostly referred as the 2nd) states that no idol should be served by man in any form, and from this perspective the Memphis statue is a rather odd choice of representing Christian belief. In this specific case the commissioners seems to be not aware of the ambiguity behind the statue.
This second statue is rather a misinterpretation, or appropriation of the original, it evidently questions the notion of artwork in the context of a secular society. Hence the question is not only that these images could be interpreted in religious context, but rather the statue could remain secular regarding its relation to artworks. Being secular means not only to distance religion and state in an administrative and theoretical, empirical level but also leaving artworks in a marginalized, secular state, leaving it in the for public spaces, galleries, museums.
Non-secular image debate starts when the very notion of using images not in their original context, but as some political cultural objects. The post-secular starts where the artwork is modified because of a commandment or a belief, rather than a pure aesthetic decision. In this sense, the political usage of an image can be considered as non-secular,




The Liberty Statues image usage, modification , turned some attention on the original iconic language of the work, the stern faced woman in Roman style clothes holding acting as a lighthouse till 1902 immediately reverted back being a secular state monument. ‘That’s freedom over there standing 172 feet high, and we are the state, silent, working in the background, in small, non-decorated square buildings for the benefit of the public.’ – so says the state, the real embodiment of a secular society, which in a way we might say, was indeed attacked on 9/11 in the form of the Pentagon and the Twin Towers.
Yet, I have to add, that for the non-secular minds of the terrorist the Twin Towers indeed were the idol of the hated secularism, the Towers of Satan/Babel, and this could be an interesting starting point to start my research…

The real challenge is to find the artworks which mark the beginning of a post-secular discourse on either on political or social level. To find images that can’t be any longer identified and discussed in a secular context.




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