Kisses at the memorial: affective objects, US militarism and feminist resistance at sites of wartime memory

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2005, American artist Seward Johnson first exhibited The Unconditional Surrender, a sculpture modelled after Life Magazine’s iconic photograph of a sailor kissing a white-clad woman on 14 August 1945, day of the Allied victory against Japan that ended World War II. This article interrogates the presence of Johnson’s sculpture, now an iconic object, at prominent sites of tourism and commemoration in San Diego, California, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Caen, Northern France, amongst other places in the United States and Europe. It asks, how do affective encounters between the sculpture, memorial visitors, and feminist activists shape understandings of US militarism? Controversies around the sculpture illuminate the importance of affective encounters with iconic objects for sustaining militarism, as well as for contesting it. On the one hand, visitors’ often playful interactions with the sculpture reproduce benevolent accounts of US militarism. On the other hand, the addition of a plaque reminding visitors of the sexual violence perpetrated by American servicemen abroad shows that objects matter in the contestation of the violent dimension of any militarism. I suggest that while verbal interventions shape the meaning of iconic objects, the latter’s aesthetic qualities, and those of their material environment, allow it to ‘speak’ for or against militarism. These findings draw on participant observation at the memorial sites and an analysis of statements by the artist, curators, feminist critics, and visitors.