The most significant show in an American art museum

MONUMENTS

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/02/13/the-big-review-monuments-moca-los-angeles-the-brick (paywall)

MONUMENTS, open til May 6. Geffen Contemporary at MOCA

The Los Angeles Times calls it the “most significant show in an American art museum right now”.

Grace Elizabeth Hale, in southerncultures.org:  “Smith has done something I did not think was possible. She has made us see the most dangerous quality of Confederate and, indeed, all forms of monumentality: its potential to be beautiful…

As a UVA professor and a longtime resident of Charlottesville, I know what it means to live with {these monuments}.  Every spring, I took my southern history classes on a Lost Cause walking tour of the town. When the City Council voted in early 2017 to take down Robert E. Lee from a downtown park beside the beloved library, I was thrilled. This brave decision was not a consequence of the Unite the Right rally. Instead, the plan to remove the statue prompted a half year of white suprem@cist gatherings that attracted thousands of armed right-wing radicals. On those fateful August days, they marched through my workplace and terrorized my students. They parked on my street and attacked my neighbors. They k1lled Heather Heyer five blocks from my house.  

The inclusion of the actual monuments makes this show not just politically but also aesthetically risky. The threat here is real. Most obviously, this means the most extensive security I have ever encountered in a contemporary art space.”