A Monumental Moment for the Masses

When I was teaching art history, I would begin the course with a big and broad question: “Who writes history?”

Before delving into the complex material of global art history, this question and the preceding conversation with students, helps set up a background for discerning that history is not clean cut; and that a plurality of voices and experiences are a requisite for its understanding. The most common points that the students came up with were: A) historians and B) rich and powerful people. Both answers merit the disclaimer that historical accounts are not immune from bias.

Since my time as a public school student (more than twenty years ago), several concepts and accounts within the history and art historical curricula have progressed to cover a more diverse range of narratives; because there are recorded experiences from both colonizer and colonized after all. Topics like colonialism and the relationship between early European colonizers and Indigenous nations, were largely described with benevolent and symbiotic terms. This perspective neglected to mention the abuses of Indigenous peoples that led to genocide and an ongoing trauma. But a more complete accord of colonization, with input from Indigenous voices and culture has begun to address gaps in the curriculum, leading to a more balanced and critical approach to teaching history.

This is not, as some would charge, due to education being “woke.” History as it has been accounted for in traditional textbooks and popular culture, is not often the result of a democratized survey.

First, the educational materials (i.e. textbooks) that are used and distributed in classrooms have taken a diminished viewpoint of topics that reveal damaging effects of Western-centrism ideologies, and destructive actions taken by the United States onto its own people. Furthermore, the whitewashing of negative events to support nativist perspectives, has been made commonplace by right wing politics and media influencers.

In 2020, the United States engaged in a corrective measure to remove public monuments dedicated to the Confederacy. These monuments, as I noted in a post during that period, serve to uphold the ideology of white supremacy. The fact that the largest campaign to create and display them came during the Jim Crow era, makes it clear that it was an attempt to eschew civil rights discourse and efforts to desegregate the country. They do not educate or inform. They are nothing more than a figurative representation of someone’s likeness. There is little to no explanation of who these individuals are, or most importantly, the pain and abuse they inflicted on others. In all cases these are men who fought sometimes to the death to uphold the right for human beings to own other human beings; while also participating in treason against the United States.

I revisited the topic of Confederate monuments two more times because this issue was and is too dense and complex to cover in one essay alone. And here we are again, because as the maxim goes, “history repeats itself.” Unfortunately there are those of us who refuse to learn from the past (or acknowledge its errors), and due to their status as influencers and policy makers, doom us all to repeat it. What I wrote then is just as true today, “Are they really teaching us about our past and our collective culture, or are they symbolically clinging to a dangerous status quo that is threatened by an increasingly more empathetic and informed society?”

Education invigorates us to be inquisitive and engaged in critical thinking and conscientious consumption of media forms. An educated student of history asks enduring questions about historical narratives, and their inquisitiveness often challenges attempts and instances of revisionism and erasure. That empowerment is, in my mind, the main reason behind budget drastic cuts and censorship of public education programs.

One of the longest continual wars waged in this country is the war on information and expression, known as the “culture wars.” While war is used metaphorically, the culture war is a battle between opponents who seek to politically impose their ideologies as the status quo way of thinking and acting. The right, especially the religious faction of the right wing movement, has typically been the main aggressor, waging campaigns against works of art that they find “offensive” to their staunch, provincial agenda. The 2020 dismantling of the Confederate monuments was a notable exception. That effort was led by progressive forces.

Artists have had a highly visible role in addressing the symbols of white supremacy and oppression. Five years prior to the 2020 initiative to remove Confederate monuments, an artist named Bree Newsome scaled a 30-foot flagpole to take down the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina State House. Her daring act was prompted by the racially motivated mass-shooting murder of nine people at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The action resulted in widespread pressure placed on state legislators to permanently remove the flag from the State House, which they did on July 10, 2015.

After the monuments were removed, they were generally transferred to storage sights where they sat in limbo. Some of them re-entered society, but as new sculptural objects. Kara Walker’s Unmanned Drone (2025) was created by physically altering a 1921 bronze equestrian statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. This particular statue is iconic because it could be prominently seen during the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Walker used a plasma cutter to disassemble the statue, piece by piece; and then welded the bronze fragments to form a new sculpture. It is still identifiable as having the formal qualities of horse and rider, but in a surreal and mythological fashion. The monstrous figure is a headless horseman that would give the Hessian soldier version from Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow nightmares. Although it resembles a large beastly figure, Unmanned Drone exudes the feeling of a defeated and depleted ghoul, who is haunted by their past and doomed to walk the land weighed down by their sword, which is dragging through the Earth in shame.

Due to the controversial and traumatic nature of Confederate monuments, perhaps it is time to recontextualize the meaning and intent of a monument altogether. A monument by nature pays homage to a person, place or event; however, as a public work of art, it should be reflective of democratic (not the political party, the ideology) principles like equality, equity and justice. White supremacist iconography, which are what the Confederate statues and sculptures are, is the antithesis of the three aforementioned tenets.

Shellyne Rodriguez’s Phoenix Ladder: Monument to the People of the Bronx (2025) located on Grand Concourse and Morris Avenue in the Bronx, is an example of what a contemporary monument can stand for. Taking inspiration from the Bronx, the public sculpture is a fitting tribute to the vibrant character of the neighborhood, with a specific focus on its resilient population. Rendered in terracotta, brick and steel, the monument resembles a traditional multi-story apartment building, rendered as a pyramid, with ornate facade featuring the letters “B” and “X,” which is the abbreviation for the borough; as well as a graphics of a phoenix, Black power fists and eyes, each surrounded by fanciful flames. Rodriguez has included a fire escape type of ladder at the top of the structure, perhaps as an allegory for progress, spirit and the resilience that residents are known for, which has enabled them to rise above when under duress.

While we art historians are wont to make interpretations about meanings of symbols in art, the fire escape also has a very literal meaning. At large, the monument references a specific historical account wherein slumlords purposefully let their buildings burn (sometimes setting them ablaze themselves), as a means for collecting insurance payouts. These fires destroyed a staggering 80% of the South Bronx’s housing during the 1970s. It was a massive humanitarian crisis that displaced many long term residents. But rather than pack up and leave the Bronx entirely, the local community was determined to rebuild. Despite little attention from city agencies, neighbors worked tirelessly together to fix their homes and collectively heal from the trauma they were laden with.

The mythological phoenix, whose name influenced the sculpture’s title, is a bird that rises from its own ashes, signifying renewal and immortality. Rising from the ashes and soaring above adversity, the humans of the Bronx are an actual embodiment of the phoenix’s enduring and eternal spirit. Phoenix Ladder: Monument to the People of the Bronx is an exemplary testament to the valorous and enduring nature of the people who uplifted their community. As a monument it encapsulates communal stewardship, empowerment, triumph and heroism, while embracing themes of unity and collective care.

In conclusion, I would like to revisit the question of “Who writes history?” I would posit that we the people do. The times we are living in are particularly indicative of a plurality of voices coming together to determine our own future, and thereby writing our collective history in the process. Our overwhelming display of heterogeneous engagement is antithetical to the actions of oppressive political factions or the spoils of oligarchical conquest. We are seeing an outright rejection of cultural reification, in favor of a sociocultural adaptation that challenges and seeks to change unsustainable, detrimental and outdated cultural norms.