Confederate statues have roiled Charlottesville since at least 2016, when Charlottesville High School student Zyahna Bryant petitioned City Council to remove them, a request that culminated in 2017’s deadly Unite the Right rally.
Charlottesville and its Lost Cause legacy have once again taken the national stage, this time as part of a major Los Angeles exhibition called “Monuments,” a collaboration eight years in the making between the Museum of Contemporary Art and The Brick.
The controversial statues of generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson have been transformed into bronze ingots and a centaur-like sculpture, respectively. Jackson’s rose granite plinth is now reenvisioned as flowers. And the museums commissioned 18 new pieces to be juxtaposed with the old…