LOS ANGELES—This October, The Brick and MOCA debut MONUMENTS, a landmark exhibition that juxtaposes decommissioned monuments, many of which are Confederate, with newly commissioned and borrowed works by contemporary artists. On view from October 23, 2025, to May 3, 2026, at The Brick and the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, the exhibition explores how these contested objects are perceived today and poses fundamental questions about the historical and contemporary functions of memorials, as well as the nature of memorialization and commemoration itself.

Co-curated by Hamza Walker, Director of The Brick; Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator at MOCA; and artist Kara Walker, with Hannah Burstein, Curatorial Associate at The Brick; and Paula Kroll, Curatorial Assistant at MOCA, MONUMENTS focuses on a period of national transformation as Confederate monuments and related symbols were removed from public spaces over the last ten years. These removals sparked a national debate that continues to this day. MONUMENTS offers a space for reflection, dialogue with contemporary art, and critical engagement with some of the most urgent issues of our time. 

“Encountering the monuments indoors—removed from their pedestals, some bearing traces of protest, and installed among contemporary works of abstract painting, film, video, sculpture, and photography—provides a significant shift in context for the objects, extending the work of holding them accountable to the here and now,” said Bennett Simpson. “We believe it is important to speak openly about their circumstances and intended function. And we considered our mission-driven organizations good locations for the task - to grapple with changes in contemporary aesthetics and historical memory alike.”

“The widely anticipated, extraordinary MONUMENTS exhibition is an unprecedented, and epic project born from the visionary collaboration of artists and curators looking unflinchingly at U.S. history,” said Ann Goldstein, Interim Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. “It is a privilege to work in partnership with The Brick on this powerful and nuanced exhibition, bolstered by our mutual, longstanding commitment to serving our communities with ambitious, artist-centered projects and survey exhibitions that foster broader understanding of the most significant art and issues of our time.”

“The widely anticipated, extraordinary MONUMENTS exhibition is an unprecedented, and epic project born from the visionary collaboration of artists and curators looking unflinchingly at U.S. history,” said Ann Goldstein, Interim Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. “It is a privilege to work in partnership with The Brick on this powerful and nuanced exhibition, bolstered by our mutual, longstanding commitment to serving our communities with ambitious, artist-centered projects and survey exhibitions that foster broader understanding of the most significant art and issues of our time.”

“Between the decommissioned monuments and the turn of events that resulted in their being taken down, this exhibition's themes encompass the whole of United States history, from 1619 to yesterday” said Hamza Walker. “This gave us wide latitude in the selection of both pre-existing and commissioned contemporary artwork. In both cases, the works in this exhibition address the questions of who we want to be as a nation, and who and what is worth remembering, let alone celebrating.”

MOCA and The Brick have borrowed ten monuments for the exhibition. The oldest monument in the exhibition, unveiled in 1887, depicts Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney (1777-1864), who wrote the Dred Scott decision (1857). The most recent, depicting newspaper editor and diplomat Josephus Daniels (1862-1948), was commissioned by his family in 1985. (In the summer of 2020, the descendants of Daniels opted to remove the statue from public display.) Monument building in the United States peaked between the 1890s and 1920s—long after the Civil War —while removals began in 2017, following the racially motivated mass shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. These removals were often highly publicized and hotly contested. Included in the exhibition are two monuments to Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, which were once at the center of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally and counter-protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The monuments in the exhibition are borrowed from the City of Baltimore, Maryland; the City of Montgomery, Alabama; The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Charlottesville, Virginia; the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond; the Valentine, Richmond, Virginia; and The Daniels Family Charitable Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina. 

MONUMENTS features newly commissioned artworks by contemporary artists Bethany Collins, Abigail DeVille, Karon Davis, Stan Douglas, Kahlil Robert Irving, Cauleen Smith, Kevin Jerome Everson, Walter Price, Monument Lab, Davóne Tines and Julie Dash, and Kara Walker. These works engage with the monuments and legacies of slavery. In some instances, artists chose to respond directly to individual monuments, while others created works that took up contemporary issues raised by the historical contexts represented by the statues.