When I first stepped foot inside of this exhibition of decommissioned Confederate monuments and reflective contemporary art pieces, I was taken aback by the scale of it all. I’d seen the installation photos of the side-by-side statues of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee on horseback, but as I craned my neck up at these towering tributes, they felt awe-inspiring in the most dreadful meaning of the phrase.
Most Angelenos don’t need to be convinced of the immoralities of the Confederacy—but most likely haven’t been forced to come face-to-face with such Civil War iconography either. “Monuments,” displayed almost entirely at MOCA’s Little Tokyo warehouse with a single Kara Walker installation at the Brick in East Hollywood, presents tangible proof that these monuments removed from public view over the past decade were not simple, somber remembrances for the recently deceased, these were larger-than-life celebrations of the Confederacy forged in the Jim Crow era and often financed by folks seeking to twist its history.
Works from 19 artists respond either directly or thematically to the many statues on display, or in some cases physically alter them: Bethany Collins’s Love is dangerous chisels pieces of the granite pedestal of a Stonewall Jackson monument into Carolina rose petals. Other graffitied or paint-splattered statues speak for themselves: The Robert E. Lee monument at the center of 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia resides here reduced to a pile of bronze ingots and a bucket of leftover slag.
The matter-of-fact wall text lends context to hauntingly-shot portraits of wicked people and beautifully-detailed busts of complicated figures. Seated in front of a colossal globe, a monument to Matthew Fontaine Maury pays homage to the father of modern oceanography—who, the wall text notes, sought to expand American slavery into Brazil. The text next to a comparatively modest statue of Josephus Daniels notes his progressive stances on women’s suffrage and trust busting—and advocacy for white supremacy.
“Monuments” is a tremendous undertaking in every sense, and easily L.A.’s most essential exhibition to see in 2025 (and 2026, as its run extends through the spring). It’s worth every cent of its $18 ticket price, though if you book far enough ahead of time, you can take advantage of free admission on the first Friday of every month.
