Lisa Parola's book on the meaning of monuments today

Lisa Parola's book "Giù i monumenti? Una questione aperta" (Einaudi, 2022) examines the dual nature of toppled monuments: as compromised sculptures and as news events. Parola distinguishes between the discourse on monumental sculpture—where 20th-century operational factors shifted focus from figuration to spatial relations—and the current decolonization process that centers on iconoclastic gestures as a revision of historical perspectives. The book argues that toppled statues become signs impacting society, rehabilitating forgotten monuments through renewed public interest and infamy. Parola traces the evolution from Rodin's "The Burghers of Calais" (1885-95), which rejected vertical isolation for horizontal dialogue, to Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine (1995) and temporary installations that oppose commemorative stability. Contemporary monuments aim for repositioning meanings, celebrating cultural transformation from the margins. Parola also addresses the paradoxical museum rehabilitation of toppled monuments, where iconoclasm and damnatio memoriae provoke awareness of a present that replaces colonialism and virtuous models with dialogue and anti-discrimination debates.