Four of Richmond’s fallen Confederate monuments are headed to California’s Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) for an art exhibition called “Monuments” next year.
“Monuments” will feature Jefferson Davis, which is on view at the Valentine in Richmond, Matthew Fontaine Maury (including the globe), Williams Carter Wickham and Joseph Bryan.
“This show is a first of its kind,” said Hamza Walker, a curator of the exhibit. “The discourse surrounding the monuments is of national significance. Everybody has skin in the game.”
The MOCA exhibit will feature 15 Confederate monuments, including those from other states and cities such as Charlottesville, Baltimore and Houston, alongside contemporary art on loan and specifically commissioned for the exhibit.
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As first reported in Style Weekly, the “Monuments” exhibit is co-organized by LAXART, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit arts organization, and MOCA. The exhibit will be on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, which was given ownership of the monuments from the city of Richmond, has agreed to loan the monuments for the exhibit.
“I think anything we can do to put this whole concept of the ‘Lost Cause’ in a proper perspective is a good thing,” said Monroe Harris, chair of the Black History Museum. “This will create conversations that need to be had in some areas. We live in Richmond, ground zero for a lot of the things related to the Civil War. But in other regions of the country, their exposure and understanding of it is somewhat limited. This exhibition can help create some conversations and create clarity and understanding. Hopefully, we can come to some reconciliation about this issue as well.”
LAXART has purchased the Charlottesville statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson for $50,000 for the exhibition, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow. The Black History Museum will be lending the Richmond monuments free of charge.
“We cannot overstate the importance of having Richmond on board with this exhibition,” Walker said. “It gives the exhibition a kind of gravitas that the issue and the topic warrants. Having Richmond on board is seminal.”
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The idea for the “Monuments” exhibit at MOCA came long before the first monuments started being torn down in Richmond during the summer of 2020.
Walker traces the trajectory for the exhibit as early as 2015 after Dylann Roof shot and murdered nine African Americans during Bible study inside the Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina. Bree Newsome, an activist, removed a Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds in response and was subsequently arrested.
“That was the first call for the removal of Confederate monuments and Confederate flags,” Walker said that he noticed on a national scale.
New Orleans took down its Confederate monuments in 2017, followed by Charlottesville’s vote to take down the Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues, which led to the Unite the Right rally. That was followed by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and, ultimately, the removal of the majority of Confederate monuments in Richmond.
“I didn’t expect these things to come down during my lifetime,” said Walker, who is Black. “The reason for doing the exhibition is that the removal of these monuments is an historic event. I think of it as a show to mark this moment of historical importance.”
Although the exhibit aims to explore issues of racism, history and social justice, the exhibit is also contemporary in its nature.
“This historic change for historical progress has happened over the past 10 years. That’s a very contemporary phenomenon,” said Bennett Simpson, senior curator for MOCA. “The dislike for these monuments, the abuse that these monuments caused, the interaction of these monuments with the citizens of this country, that’s an epic situation. Their coming down is a recent phenomenon.”
The monuments will be shown alongside contemporary artwork, as a dialogue of sorts.
“We intended this exhibition to be a dialogue between moments of history. The contemporary artwork helps drive that home,” Simpson said.
Along with the paint-splattered Jefferson Davis, the “Monuments” exhibit will also include the allegorical figure “Vindicatrix” from the top of the Davis monument and the two bronze urns from the parapets.
The monuments will be transported to MOCA via a Chicago-based moving company. The cost for the transport has not yet been calculated and will be covered by MOCA.
Support for the exhibition is being provided by the Mellon Foundation as well as additional seed funding by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation with additional funding by Teiger Foundation.
While the Los Angeles audience viewing Confederate monuments at MOCA will be quite different than in Richmond, the monuments have a “national cultural significance,” Walker said.
The monuments “represent something that’s been a flashpoint. They have a current terror to them. They are part of a national debate and national conversation,” Simpson added.
The Jefferson Davis has been on view at the Valentine since June, in its “2020 state:” toppled, on its back and splattered with pink paint.
“We’ve seen such a wide variety of people and opinions. It’s been very interesting,” Bill Martin, director of the Valentine, said. “We’ve been gathering lots of really important information on what people know about the statues, and what they thought about the monuments and their removal. It’s been a fascinating process.”
Martin said the Valentine will use that information going forward as they reinstall the Edward Valentine Sculpture Studio, the sculptor of the Jefferson Davis statue and many other figures from the “Lost Cause.”
The Black History Museum and Cultural Center, which is still without an executive director, is deciding what to do with the Confederate monuments in its care and will be asking for feedback via a survey on its website.
The “Monuments” exhibit at MOCA is scheduled for fall 2023 and is being curated by Walker, Simpson and artist Kara Walker.
PHOTOS: Richmond's Monument Avenue, then and now
One in a series of photo galleries looking at the monuments removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue.
One in a series of photo galleries looking at the monuments removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue.
One in a series of photo galleries looking at the monuments removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue.
One in a series of photo galleries looking at the monuments removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue.
One in a series of photo galleries looking at the monuments removed from Richmond's Monument Avenue.