An art historian who chaired Louisville’s public art commission said he would leave his post amid plans to restore a statue of King Louis XVI graffitied by protestors in 2020 following the police killing of Breonna Taylor.
In an op-ed published in the Courier-Journal, Chris Reitz, a scholar who has published two books on painter Martin Kippenberger, accused the city of Louisville, Kentucky, of attempting to “erase all evidence” of those 2020 protests on their five-year anniversary. He raised concerns about the cost of restoring the sculpture, which he described as being “beyond repair,” and questioned the true motivation for paying the sum.
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“There are legitimate reasons to care for this statue, but, from where I sit, they do not justify the high price tag of that care,” he wrote. “Indeed, it is hard to imagine that anyone would support this expense if the statue had been damaged by accident or act of God.”
Moreover, Reitz wrote, “I fear that the real aim of these funds to send a message that our city is hostile to anti-police protests and that we prefer to pretend Ms. Taylor’s killing never happened than face the fact that not enough has changed to prevent such tragedies in the future.”
The statue of Louisville’s namesake was damaged on May 28, 2020, the same day that the city released the 911 calls from Taylor’s boyfriend and neighbors describing her killing. Taylor was fatally shot by on March 13, 2020, during a police raid on her apartment. Her family was awarded $12 million by the city of Louisville later that year; one of the officers who opened fire during that raid was found guilty of using excessive force in 2024.
The Louis XVI statue was produced by Achille Valois, a member of Jacques-Louis David’s studio. It was initially erected in Montpellier, France, in 1829, but was not given by that city to Louisville until 1966.
On May 28, 2020, a man pulled off one of the sculpture’s hands. During the course of the summer, as protests continued to roil the nation and longstanding monuments fell, the Louis XVI statue was graffitied. Eventually, however, Louisville officials decided to take it away, claiming safety concerns.
Questions about what to do with the statue have been debated ever since. A 2022 survey found that just 60 percent of Louisville residents thought the statue represented their values. And research commissioned by the city revealed that the sculpture was already structurally damaged before the 2020 protests.
But Louisville officials have continued to push attempts to restore the work—even as the city’s Commission on Public Art, which Reitz chaired, advised against doing so.
The city has estimated the cost of restoring the sculpture and putting it back on view at $200,000. Reitz, an art history professor at the University of Louisville, said the statue’s “estimated fair market value is only $60,000.” He also claimed that even if the statue were repaired, “it could never go back outside” because its marble was so cracked.
“This city deserves great art,” Reitz wrote. “And I don’t want to stir the pot. Perhaps Louisville wants their King back—perhaps they don’t mind spending tax dollars to repair an irreparable statue. They will just have to do it without me.”
His resignation comes as high-ranking US politicians continue to argue over how best to deal with public monuments. In a recent executive order that targeted the Smithsonian Institution, President Donald Trump wrote that museums must commit themselves to “solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” His order required politicians to “take action to reinstate” monuments that had been taken away since the start of 2020.
Moreover, Trump wrote, politicians must ensure that current monuments do not “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Some museums have taken a different stance. Curator Hamza Walker has been readying a long-awaited show called “MONUMENTS” that will debut at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles this fall. Alongside contemporary artworks, the show will feature decommissioned Confederate monuments that show their “roots in a funerary impulse to [their] rise as a crystalline symbol of a white supremacist ideology, whose obstinacy became increasingly conspicuous against calls for civil right,” per the show’s description.