Free Republic

A statue of Christopher Columbus was installed on the grounds of the White House early Sunday morning, as part of President Trump’s effort to position the explorer as a hero after monuments to him were removed across the country.The statue is a replica of one that protesters in Baltimore tore down and dumped into the city’s Inner Harbor in the summer of 2020. The statue’s marble pieces were retrieved from the harbor, and a Maryland artist used them to guide the creation of the replica.The new statue was erected sometime overnight on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office...

A new statue of Christopher Columbus went up on the White House grounds Sunday that was built using pieces from a monument to the Italian explorer that protesters destroyed six years ago. The 13-foot, one-ton replica of a Columbus statue toppled in Baltimore in 2020 – then dumped into the city’s inner harbor – was commissioned by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations and is part of the White House’s celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. The statue has been placed outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Artists retrieved shards of marble belonging to the wrecked statue from...

The statue of a Texas Rangers law enforcement figure disappeared under a shroud of controversy nearly six years ago.The Rangers, who love reunions more than most organizations, are bringing back another figure from the past, one who disappeared under a shroud of controversy nearly six years ago. On Monday morning, the club accepted and installed the 12-foot bronze One Riot, One Ranger statue depicting a member of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency that had previously stood at Dallas Love Field until it was removed during the racially-charged summer of 2020 after a book detailing incidents of police brutality...

Video of statue being set alight. Protesters in Iran on Thursday set fire to a statue of former Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, footage obtained by Iran International shows. The website reported that the incident took place in the city of Lali in Khuzestan, located in southwestern Iran. It comes on the eve of the anniversary of the elimination of Soleimani in a US drone attack in Iraq, on January 3, 2020. Earlier on Thursday, Iranian media reported that the ongoing clashes and riots in Iran, which started as part of a broader wave of...

Nearly 15 years later, Detroit finally has its statue of RoboCop. The bronze statue depicting the eponymous cybernetic star of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 set-in-Detroit sci-fi satire was installed in Eastern Market on Wednesday, nearly 15 years after someone proposed it in a viral social media post. Back in 2011, someone with the Twitter account @MT (no, not us) tweeted at then-Mayor Dave Bing that Detroit should have a statue of the part-man, part-machine cop because “Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & RoboCop would kick Rocky’s butt.” “He’s a GREAT ambassador for Detroit,” the tweet continued. The idea got...

A bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, which was toppled by demonstrators in 2020 following George Floyd’s death, was reinstalled this past weekend in Washington, D.C. The statue, which stands 11 feet tall atop a 16-foot granite pedestal, was pulled down with ropes, spray-painted with graffiti and set on fire by demonstrators who viewed it as a symbol of systemic racism and the Confederacy. Pike was a Confederate general in the Civil War and also served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He was one of the most influential figures in the history of American Freemasonry...

More than two decades ago, Ukrainian and Polish archaeologists unearthed an exquisitely carved marble head of a female statue at the ancient Greek site of Chersonesus on the Crimean Peninsula. The artist skillfully rendered the woman's features with a hint of both Greek idealism and Roman realism, which prompted researchers to wonder who exactly the sculpture was meant to depict. La Brújula Verde reports that researchers have recently scrutinized many aspects of the sculpture -- including its date, design, execution, and archaeological context -- to finally ascertain the mystery woman's identity. Researchers determined the statue likely represents an aristocratic woman...

A statue of President Trump holding hands with Jeffrey Epstein appeared briefly on D.C.'s National Mall this week, only to be removed after less than a day. The bronze-painted installation, titled Best Friends Forever, depicts the two men smiling at each other, each with an arm and leg raised as if in mid-frolic. "In Honor of Friendship Month, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his 'closest friend,' Jeffrey Epstein," reads the plaque, emblazoned with hands making a heart shape. September is widely recognized as friendship month. Trump has repeatedly downplayed his relationship with Epstein, the...

Police in Louisiana have arrested three suspects in connection with the theft and destruction of a statue depicting Abraham Lincoln The incident took place at the Houmas House Estate and Gardens, a historic plantation located in Darrow, a small town between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Located on a curve of the Mississippi River, the site first attracted European settlers in the early 1700s; construction on the property’s large Greek Revival-style mansion started in 1829. Today, the 38-acre site is a tourist destination, Kevin Kelly, the site’s owner, noticed the antique, solid silver statue of the nation’s 16th president was...

NAGOYA The statue of 16th-century warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi located at the entrance of a shopping arcade in Nagoya has been beheaded, a local association said Tuesday. A local resident notified the shopping center association on Saturday that the statue was missing its head. The neck has since been covered with duct tape to prevent further damage, according to an official of the group. The association, which regards the statue as a symbolic figure of the arcade, is considering filing a damage report with police, the official said. The defacement of the statue, made of reinforced plastic, comes after previous instances...

A bronze statue of a man who lost his life during an attempted assassination of Donald Trump during a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania in July 2024 has been placed at the site. Corey Comperatore, 50, a volunteer firefighter and former chief, was shot and killed when Thomas M. Crooks, 20, opened fire during a Trump campaign rally in Butler July 13, 2024. Secret Service agents shot and killed Crooks less than 30 seconds after he opened fire. A statue of Comperatore was installed near the entrance to the 77th annual Butler Farm Show. The statue shows Comperatore wearing his...

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Restoring a memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress will cost roughly $10 million total, a U.S. Army official said Wednesday — the latest development in a Trump administration effort to combat what it calls “erasing American history.”Once back in the cemetery, the monument — described a few years ago as “problematic from top to bottom” — will also feature panels nearby that will offer context about its history, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity about a project still in progress.The Pentagon expects it to...

Under the order, Trump directed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to determine whether statues have been removed since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to 'perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' But Pike did lead a regimen of Native Americans in Arkansas who sided with the Confederacy and were accused of scalping Union troops in an 1862 battle. He eventually received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson for his wartime actions and went on to become a prominent member of...

The white marble bust of the “Riders on the Storm” singer — made by Croatian artist Mladen Mikulin — was placed at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris on the 10th anniversary of Morrison’s death in 1981. The infamous sculpture, weighing nearly 300 pounds, did not appear damaged beyond the graffiti and its broken nose, which were already there when the bust went missing 37 years ago, according to newly released pictures. Morrison’s gravesite — situated in an area called the “Poets Corner”– has attracted hordes of fans since the 27-year-old was laid to rest in 1971, according to the...

A bronze statue of First Lady Melania Trump has apparently disappeared from her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia. Local media said the statue was sawed off at the ankles and carried away from the area, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday, noting police are investigating and trying to find those responsible. “The original wooden statue was torched in July 2020. The rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a linden tree, showing her in a pale blue dress like the one she wore at Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017. The replica bronze statue has no obvious resemblance with the...

Sotheby's famed auction room was filled with gasps followed by shocked silence after an iconic statue priced far too ambitiously failed to sell at auction. Billionaires descended on the New York City event on Tuesday in the hope of snagging a masterpiece created by the likes of Picasso, Monet or Matisse. But it was Alberto Giacometti's 1955 bronze bust, called Grand tête mince, that was billed as the auction's centerpiece by experts who gave it a $70 million guide price.

The markets are responding positively to a vast shift in the direction of the Trump economic policy direction (a little change that I’ve been calling for since well before Liberation Day). I’m very happy about it as well. There’s a reason that’s vitally important: Right now, the Republicans have a lot of running room, and one of the reasons they have a lot of running room is because the Democrats continue to be insane. I don’t just mean they’re insane in terms of their policy preferences, although many of those policy preferences are quite crazy. I mean, culturally speaking, the...

New York City's Times Square installed a statue of a 12-foot-tall Black woman in casual clothing that its creator hopes will encourage people to reflect on "greater cultural diversity." New York-based Times Square Arts recently put up the new statue display, titled "Grounded in the Stars," by artist Thomas J Price, along with his "Man Series" animated billboards, both of which are temporary, but causing a stir online.

New York City previously tore down a historic Thomas Jefferson statue only to now erect a 12-foot bronze statue of an "overweight black woman," which many blasted as “tasteless” and more.The statue is called “Grounded in the Stars” and was unveiled on Wednesday in Times Square, created by artist Thomas J. Price. The artist's “Man Series,” a stop motion animation, will also appear nightly throughout May on the district’s billboards, providing a “two-part takeover” in the district that “amplifies traditionally marginalized bodies on a monumental scale," per the Times Square website.Price said, per the Times Square site.“Times Square stands as...

SAN FRANCISCO - A 45-foot-tall sculpture of a nude woman that was scrapped from a plan to place it in Union Square earlier this year is back, but at a different location in San Francisco. The Unveiling What we know: The unveiling of the sculpture, R-EVOLUTION, is set for Thursday, April 10 at Embarcadero Plaza. The multidimensional sculpture, done by Marco Cochrane, appeared at Burning Man in 2015 and was also seen on the Las Vegas Strip as well as Petaluma. Officials said it couldn't be at Union Square because the 16,000-pound statue is too heavy for the square's tiles.