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Brooke Tillman, Monuments, Week 4


All three of these monuments are beautiful pieces serving a purpose with immense strength.

The braceros monument sheds light on the brutal conditions these workers went through in order to build the cities and the infrastructure that America now enjoys. The terrible conditions, treatment, and labor the braceros worked under are seen in the monument, along with the more personal side, showing a work displaced form his family. His son reaches for the bracero but can't touch him. Another additional layer is the location of the piece, "borders a new mixed-use, 355-unit housing development built by Trammell Crow." Trammel Crow is a multi-billion dollar real estate company and" a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, and the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (in terms of 2014 revenue)," according to the company's website. Putting this important monument right up against real estate that cost at least millions to be built on the backs of workers as well forces one to remember how each house, street, farm was made, by the workers.


Kehinde Wiley’s sculpture ”Rumors of War” marks a new era. An era of inclusivity and love for oneself and each other. He purposely puts a modern day African-American man valiantly riding a beautiful horse a few blocks from an inherently racist Confederate statue in Virginia, which was at one time a Confederate state. And in his own words, this is his way of saying "enough already' and putting his foot down against the injustice and the complacency over injustice that this nation tends to operate on.

Kara Walker’s Fons Americans fountain forces observers to think critically of the impact of art and what a piece says. The existence of historical monuments built upon racism, classism, and oppression, like the ones she observed in Britain, should be tested. Simply because a historical event happened does not merit its glorification. Kara Walker's piece reminds the world that art can be a weapon, and it's up to the artist to use it.

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