Howdy!
Montreal’s bureau d’art public has a Facebook page where they announce things (why they don’t do it on their website, I have no clue! Kind of like buying a Cadillac and then leaving it at home at taking taxis everywhere). And recently they’ve been publicizing the repairs that have been done on various pieces in the city’s collection.
Somehow, someone decided to prioritize the sculptures in Lachine over a sculpture on Sherbrooke. My best guess would be that Obélisque en hommage à Charles De Gaulle gets seen by at least ten times as many people each day, if not 50 times more people.
If you squint, it looks kind of like an elongated tank trap.
I have no idea what the blue means either. Doing just cursory research it doesn’t appear that the The French Resistance had any one color, just a Cross of Lorraine added to the bleu, blanc, rouge.
I think that this is wrong. De Gaulle did say “Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.” But I don’t think he said it in Brazzaville in 1941, I think he said it in Algiers in 1943.
Explaining who made it, and that it was a gift in honor of both the 375 birthday of the city of Montreal and De Gaulle’s centenary.
Gotta love the bureaucrat who decided how to deal with the skateboarders.
And I can’t imagine it would be that difficult or expensive to fix the lights…
And then if you’re interested… the De Gaulle moment in Montreal.
PRESIDENT DE GAULLE VISITS MONTREAL
I would have embedded the video from Radio Canada’s archives, but I can’t.
Then finally, more on Olivier Debré, and here, too.