Tar, Bombs, and Rowdy Students in Montreal

The aim of this paper is to explore how the study of iconoclasm within the framework of commemoration history can offer a window into ongoing relationships with monuments. Specifically, it looks at different twentieth-century interactions with historical statues to discuss three types of iconoclasms in twentieth-century Montreal: staged, dissenting, and ordinary iconoclasm. The paper first looks at the way the McCord Museum has exhibited and preserved a late eighteenth-century bust of George III, allegedly Montreal’s first public monument. Second, it examines graffiti campaigns and attempts to bomb the Macdonald monument by the Front de libération du Québecs—1960s nationalist radicals—to examine forms of overtly politicized and dissenting iconoclasm. Lastly, it presents different episodes of ordinary, quotidian iconoclasm and counter-uses of commemorative complexes.