This archive report was first published on 25 June 2020.
On June 25, 2020, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York had already had a say about the Roosevelt monument, albeit indirectly. In a 1991 group show called “Dislocations”, artist David Hammons created an installation titled “Public Enemy.” He surrounded photomurals of the sculpture with sandbags and police barriers, raising questions about who was being protected – the monument or the public.
Hammons's installation was ephemeral, disappearing after the show ended. However, his message remains relevant today. As the US grapples with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, a surge in violent deaths, and a new wave of political art, impermanence has become a powerful concept.
With the Black Lives Matter movement having brought the country to this inflection point, it's now everyone's job to sustain the momentum. New art, including public monuments, has a crucial role to play in this process. By examining and understanding these symbols, we can gain insight into their mechanics, what made them persuasive in their time, and how that persuasion works or doesn't today.
Some public monuments, like the Roosevelt and Shaw statues, are eye-catching and dense with information and emotion. Others, however, are more generic and lack visual charisma. Yet, each of these images comes with a name and a history, and some of those names belong to individuals with dark legacies – murderers, enslavers, and genocidists. It's essential to remember that their history is our history, and keeping reminders of that visible can be a powerful way to push ourselves into the future by reviewing the record of how bad the past has been.
