MOCA Acquires Kara Walker Sculpture
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) has acquired a major new sculpture by artist Kara Walker. The work is constructed from the remnants of a dissected Confederate monument. The acquisition highlights MOCA's focus on engaging with social dialogue and reinterpreting historical narratives through contemporary art.
- The sculpture, titled "Unmanned Drone," was created from the dissected and reassembled bronze remnants of a 1921 monument to Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. This monument was one of two Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Virginia, that were dismantled following the 2017 "Unite the Right" white nationalist rally. - The original statue by artist Charles Keck stood in a Charlottesville park that was once a majority Black and mixed-race neighborhood razed by the city to create a whites-only park. The city deeded the dismantled statue to artist Kara Walker in 2021 to be reimagined. - "Unmanned Drone" is a central piece of the "Monuments" exhibition, a collaboration between MOCA and the non-profit gallery The Brick. The exhibition, co-curated by Walker, examines the legacy of Confederate monuments and features responses from contemporary artists to white supremacist iconography. - The acquisition is part of a larger intake of over 150 works by MOCA in the last year, with a stated focus on supporting BIPOC, women, and gender-nonconforming artists. Other significant acquisitions announced alongside Walker's sculpture include pieces by Cynthia Daignault, Paul Pfeiffer, Olafur Eliasson, and Julie Mehretu. - Walker has a long history of creating art that confronts the legacy of the Civil War-era South, often using provocative imagery to explore race, gender, and power. She has referred to her transformed sculpture as a "haint," a spirit from Southern folklore, representing the "imagination of the Lost Cause having to recognize itself for what it is." - The sister monument to the Jackson statue in Charlottesville, which depicted Robert E. Lee, was also removed and subsequently melted down. The resulting bronze ingots are also on display as part of the "Monuments" exhibition at MOCA.
