10/17/2019
Join us at the Newark Museum for an Artist Conversation with Manuel Acevedo, Sonya Clark, and Paul Farber at the Newark Museum on Monday October 21st!
More about the event:
In 2019, 400 years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, our nation continues to experience a moment of intensity and uncertainty around public monuments — especially those that symbolize the enduring legacy of racial slavery and social inequality. One such monument is Newark's very own Wars of America, a massive sculpture built by sculptor Gutzon Borglum in 1926 for Military Park. Borglum, famed for creating Mount Rushmore, was also affiliated with Ku Klux Klan for whom he designed the Confederate Monument on Stone Mountain in Georgia. Working on these two sculptures at the same time, Borglum used granite from Stone Mountain as the pedestal for his sculpture in Newark.
Taking up the central question, What is a timely monument for Newark?, New Arts Justice and Monument Lab co-curated A Call to Peace, a public arts exhibition that features Manuel Acevedo and Sonya Clark, two internationally acclaimed artists whose work probes the intersections of Confederate legacies, collective memory, and racial justice. Moderated by Salamishah Tillet (New Arts Justice), this public conversation with Acevedo (Cam-Up), Clark (Monumental Fragment), and Paul Farber (Monument Lab) will reflect on the monuments we have inherited, while discussing the role of art to usher in new, democratic futures.
