The Big Review | Monuments, The Geffen Contemporary at Moca and The Brick, Los Angeles ★★★★★

The Los Angeles exhibition “Monuments,” presented at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and The Brick, brings nine Confederate monuments into dialogue with works by 19 artists and received a five-star review from The Art Newspaper. A centerpiece is Kara Walker’s Unmanned Drone (2023), credited to her as co-curator and shown at The Brick, made by radically reworking a bronze equestrian monument of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. The original Jackson statue and a larger Robert E. Lee monument stood in Charlottesville, Virginia, until the city council voted to remove them in 2017, a decision that preceded a deadly neo-Nazi rally that summer; after years of lawsuits, the statue was removed and offered to Walker by co-curators Hamza Walker (The Brick) and Bennett Simpson (MOCA). The review argues the exhibition avoids preachiness by taking a flexible approach to the politicized history and afterlife of Confederate memorials.

Read the full article at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events