This is incredible: artist Kara Walker took a statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that had stood in Charlottesville, Virginia until 2021, chopped it up, and reconstituted it into a disfigured beast. It’s part of an exhibition of several such works called Monuments, which opens at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in LA on October 23. From the press release:
In 2021, The Brick (then known as LAXART) acquired a decommissioned equestrian monument of “Stonewall” Jackson from the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. The monument was given to Kara Walker to create the new work Unmanned Drone (2023). The original bronze statue portrayed Jackson spurring his steed into the heat of battle. Walker dissected the statue and reshuffled the parts in a Hieronymous Bosch-like fashion. The result is still horse and rider, but instead of charging into battle, Walker’s horseman wanders in Civil War purgatory, dragging its sword over a ruined battlefield.
Here’s the statue as it looked in Charlottesville:
Walker described the intent of the work in this NY Times piece:…