ECW News: “Monuments” Exhibits Repurposes Civil War Monuments to Ask New Questions
An art exhibit opened last week in Los Angeles that challenges “the nature of memorialization and commemoration” by displaying Civil War monuments in a new way.
The exhibit, co-organized and co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and The Brick, is titled Monuments. According to the museums’ press release, the exhibit “considers the ways public monuments have shaped national identity, historical memory, and current events.” The exhibit opened on October 23 and will run through May 3, 2026.
Monuments features newly commissioned artworks by a dozen contemporary artists, preexisting work by eight artists borrowed from private collectors and institutions, and a number of decommissioned monuments borrowed from across the country, including the City of Baltimore, Maryland; the City of Montgomery, Alabama; Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Charlottesville, Virginia; the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond; the Valentine, Richmond, Virginia; and The Daniels Family Charitable Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory has been following the story and joins the Emerging Civil War Podcast to discuss the exhibit.
You can also listen to the interview as an Emerging Civil War Podcast bonus episode here.
For more on the exhibit, you can read the full press release here.
For some strange reason, the MOCA press release linked above doesn’t show a picture of how contemporary art has “reimagined” the Charlottesville Jackson statue. Nor does the photo gallery on the MOCA webpage on the exhibit.
https://www.moca.org/exhibition/monuments?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22998267736&gbraid=0AAAAACKV9f3JBcHClAgWbZJ1T9GOxO_b4&gclid=CjwKCAjwjffHBhBuEiwAKMb8pIGgaRUveHj_GeC2cTl39FtCuQC-ipyOW8GCPtIA71m3K5JC6KWTARoC1_wQAvD_BwE
Gosh, I wonder why? I
eagerly await the explanation of leading historians and artists as to why we should revel in that particular piece of “art.” I can’t imagine why they are so silent now. I’m sure they can explain, convincingly, why the mutilation of Jackson’s statue was a good thing.
As I understand it, the decommissioning of the Jackson statue was a decision done democratically at the local level and reflects changing American perceptions of the Civil War’s meaning. Could you explain why that’s not a good thing? The best art is supposed to make the viewer feel, not just see. It sounds like the artist did exactly that here.
Having the authority to take an action does not make that action right. The director of the exhibit stated that the Jackson statue mutilation was designed to affront both ideologically and aesthetically.
Why? What’s the point? Some sort of ritual humiliation of the creator of the statue and a man who has been dead for 162 years?
The people who did this have the same triumphal arrogance as the most dedicated Lost Cause advocates of one hundred years ago.
Mark, I’m clearly referring to the mutilation of the statue by contemporary artists. Not its decommissioning. I’m confident you get that. I think you are trying some misdirection here.
Donald, I’d encourage both you and Bill to use this as a chance to practice empathy. It’s understandable that you feel confused and upset and disgusted by the imagery in this exhibit. That’s ok, indeed, I suspect that is what the artist is going for. Perhaps with those feelings you can start to understand how people of color have felt for over a century as they walked past public monuments on courthouse lawns to dedicated to those who fought against the United States to preserve a country founded to preserve slavery and whites supremacy.
They aren’t new questions – they are questions the North has avoided answering since 1789. “DISOWNING SLAVERY, Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England. 1780-1860″, J. P. Melish, PHD, Brown University. KKK in the North. 90% of African Americans in the South until 1940. Ghettoes in the North. Race Riots in the North. Economic repression of the South, 1865 – 1965; lingering effects today. Start answering those questions, instead of wandering onto the easy pathway of politically motivated hate that sees virtue in melting down the sculpted head of someone about whom they know literally nothing that is true. If truth were the goal, the equestrian statue of Sheridan in New York City would have a dead Indian sculpted to drape over the horse’s left rear leg to go with the Georgia pine cones being crushed under its right rear hoof. Read his letters if you don’t believe it. Read Lincoln’s relevant comments. It’s now all in the public domain, online, not hard to find.
Kevin the Carpentbagger? For shame Emerging Civil War.
I don’t understand the hostility. Kevin is a widely acknowledged expert on Civil War memory. Could you explain your comment?