Monumental Crisis

Abstract In this short contribution reflections are offered on a number of monumental works of art which were all emplaced sometime during the last 25 years in post-industrial locations in the UK that are marked by decades of urban decline, i.e. Stoke-on-Trent or North Staffordshire (the location of the 24th Roundtables), Gateshead-Newcastle and the North East of England, and Merseyside in the North West. The works of art, it will be argued, can be seen as slightly hysterical reactions to the trauma of relentless and unrelenting decline, and as expressions of a process of loss and mourning.