The Getty Research Institute presents “Monumentality” at a relevant time presenting our current contemporary concerns over the resilience of structure as well as stereotype. The monument and highway systems which define Los Angeles as a city reveals its coercive and erosive effects while a connection to all arteries of life and escalation of need.
The monument can serve to aspire and fall, hence the falling tower in Tarot. The most compelling piece in this exhibition is undoubtedly Theaster Gates’s MONUMENTAL piece “Dancing Minstrel” 2016/18 commenting on the racist trope of the black minstrel and deconstruction of that stereotype. The destructed large bobbling figure forces the viewer to connect w this dismembering in a visceral and symbolic way. In a society where stereotype has led to discrimination and hate, I find this piece to transpire us.
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