Mookie'smotivation as a character is equally problematic: at the very least, hisaction seems subject to multiple private determinations-anger at Sal,frustration at his dead-end job, rage at Radio Raheem's murder-thathave no political or "public" content. At the most intimate level, Mook-ie's act hints at the anxieties about sexual violence that we have seenencoded in other public monuments. Sal has, in Mookie's view,attempted to seduce his beloved sister (whom we have seen in a nearlyincestuous relation to Mookie in an opening scene), and Mookie haswarned his sister never to enter the pizzeria again (this dialogue stagedin front of the pizzeria's brick wall, spray-painted with the graffitomessage, "Tawana told the Truth," an evocation of another indecipher-able case of highly publicized sexual violence). Mookie's privateanxieties about his manhood ("Be a man, Mookie!" is his girlfriendTina's hectoring refrain) are deeply inscribed in his public act ofviolence against the public symbol of white domin

Violence as a way of achieving racialjustice is both impractical and immoral. Itis impractical because it is a descendingspiral ending in destruction for all. Theold law of an eye for an eye leaves every-body blind. It is immoral because it seeksto humiliate the opponent rather than winhis understanding; it seeks to annihilaterather than to convert. Violence is im-moral because it thrives on hatred ratherthan love. It destroys community andmakes brotherhood impossible. It leavessociety in monologue rather than dia-logue. Violence ends by defeating itself. Itcreates bitterness in the survivors andbrutality in the destroyers. [Martin LutherKing, Jr., "Where Do We Go from Here?"Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story(New York, 1958), p. 213]I think there are plenty of good people inAmerica, but there are also plenty of badpeople in America and the bad ones arethe ones who seem to have all the powerand be in these positions to block thingsthat you and I need. Because this is thesituation, you and I have to preserve theright to do what is necessary to bring anend to that situation, and it doesn't meanthat I advocate violence, but at the sametime I am not against using violence inself-defense. I don't even call it violencewhen it's self-defense, I call it intelligence.[Malcolm X, "Communication and Real-ity," Malcolm X. The Man and His Times, ed.John Henrik Clarke (New York, 1969), p.313]This content downloaded from167.224.111.68 on Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:36:09 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ty. The Wall is important to Sal not just because itdisplays famous Italians but because they are famous Americans (FrankSinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Liza Minelli, Mario Cuomo) who have made itpossible for Italians to think of themselves as Americans, full-fledgedmembers of the general public sphere. The Wall is important toBuggin' Out because it signifies exclusion from the public sphere. Thismay seem odd, since the neighborhood is filled with public representa-tions of African-American heroes on every side: a huge billboard ofMike Tyson looms over Sal's pizzeria; children's art ornaments thesidewalks and graffiti streaks subversive messages like "Tawana told theTruth" on the walls; Magic Johnson T-shirts, Air Jordan sneakers, anda variety of jewelry and exotic hairdos make the characters like walkingbillboards for "black pride"; and the sound-world of the film is suffusedwith a musical "Wall of Fame," a veritable anthology of great jazz,blues, and popular music emanating from Mister Sefior Love Daddy'sstorefront radio station, just two doors away from Sal's.Why aren't these tokens of black self-respect enough for Buggin'Out? The answer, I think, is that they are only tokens of self-respect, ofblack pride, and what Buggin' Out wants is the respect of whites, theacknowledgment that African-Americans are hyphenated Americans,too, just like Italians.

o. Sal is assaultedby another form of "public art" when Radio Raheem enters the pizzeriawith his boom-box blasting out Public Enemy's rap song, "Fight thePowe

pular phennot only as atrade lingo), bple ethnic pubthese partial pspecific im

world. Public sculpture that is too franexplicit about this monumentalizing of violence, whether the Assypalace reliefs of the ninth century B.c., or Morris's bomb sculpproposal of 1981, is likely to offend the sensibilities of a public comted to the repression of its own complicity

raphs. Theopenness of contemporary art to publicity and public destruction hasbeen interpreted by some commentators as a kind of artistic aggressionand scandalmongering. A more accurate reading would recognize it asa deliberate vulnerability to violence, a strategy for dramatizing newrelations between the traditionally "timeless" work of art and the tran-sient generations, the "publics," that are addresse

Oppositional movements such as surrealism, expressionism,and cubism have been recuperated for entertainment and advertising,and the boldest gestures of high modernism become the ornaments ofcorporate public spaces. If traditional public art identified certain clas-sical styles as appropriate to the embodiment of public images,contemporary public art has turned to the monumental abstraction asits acceptable icon. What Kate Linker calls the "corporate bauble" inthe shopping mall or bank plaza need have no iconic or symbolic rela-tion to the public it serves, the space it occupies, or the figures itreveres.7 It is enough that it remain an emblem of aesthetic surplus, atoken of "art" imported into and adding value to a public space.

The association of public art with violence is nothing new. Theof every Chinese dynasty since antiquity has been accompanied bydestruction of its public monuments, and the long histo

relation of images, violence, and the public sphere.2 "Even in theUnited States" political and legal control is exerted, not only over theerection of public statues and monuments but over the display of a widerange of images, artistic or otherwise, to actual or potential publics.Even in the United States the "publicness" of public images goes wellbeyond their specific sites or sponsorship: "publicity" has, in a very realsense, made all art into public art. And even in the United States, artthat enters the public sphere is liable to be received as a provocation toor an act of violence.Our own historical moment seems especially rich in examples ofsuch public acts and provocations. Recent art has carried the

In May 1988, I took what may well be the last photograph of the sof Mao Tse-tung on the campus of Beijing University. The thirty-fhigh monolith was enveloped in bamboo scaffolding "to keep ofharsh desert winds," my hosts told me with knowing smiles. That nworkers with sledgehammers reduced the statue to a pile of rubble,rumors spread throughout Beijing that the same thing was happento statues of Mao on university campuses all over China. One year lamost of the world's newspaper readers scanned the photos of Chinstudents erecting a thirty-foot-high styrofoam and plaster "GoddeLiberty" directly facing the disfigured portrait of Mao in TiananmSquare despite the warnings from government loudspeakers: "Tstatue is illegal. It is not approved by the government. Even inUnited States statues need permission before they can be put upfew days later the newspaper accounts told us of army tanks mowdown this statue along with thousands of protesters, reassertinrule of what was called law over a public

The Violence of Public Art:Do the Right ThingW. J. T. MitchellIn May 1988, I took what may well be the last photograph of the sof Mao Tse-tung on the campus of Beijing University. The thirty-fhigh monolith was enveloped in bamboo scaffolding "to keep ofharsh desert winds," my hosts told me with knowing smiles. That nworkers with sledgehammers reduced the statue to a pile of rubble,rumors spread throughout Beijing that the same thing was happento statues of Mao on university campuses all over China. One year lamost of the world's newspaper readers scanned the photos of Chinstudents erecting a thirty-foot-high styrofoam and plaster "GoddeLiberty" directly facing the disfigured portrait of Mao in TiananmSquare despite the warnings from government loudspeakers: "Tstatue is illegal. It is not approved by the government. Even inUnited States statues need permission before they can be put upfew days later the newspaper accounts told us of army tanks mowdown this statue along with thousands of protesters, reassertinrule of what was called law over a public an