MONUMENTS 
An Experience L.A. Event 

MONUMENTS is on view until May 3, 2026, at The Brick and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. To attend on your own, visit https://www.moca.org and https://the-brick.org.  

ADMISSION: 
Admission is free and open to current USC students only, who must use the provided transportation to attend. Space is limited, and advance registration is required. Check-in for the event will begin at 10:45 a.m. on campus. The bus will depart at 11:30 a.m. and return to campus at 3:30 p.m. Lunch will be provided at check-in. RSVP beginning Monday, March 2, at 10 a.m. 

RSVP

DESCRIPTION 
USC students are invited to join an afternoon of docent-led tours of the powerful exhibition, MONUMENTS. Co-organized and co-presented by The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and The Brick, MONUMENTS marks the recent wave of monument removals as a historic moment. The exhibition reflects on the histories and legacies of post-Civil War America as they continue to resonate today, bringing together a selection of decommissioned monuments, many of which are Confederate, with contemporary artworks borrowed and newly created for the occasion. Removed from their original outdoor public context, the monuments in the exhibition will be shown in their varying states of transformation, from unmarred to heavily vandalized. For this Experience L.A. event, students will visit the full exhibition at both The Brick and MOCA on the same afternoon.  

MONUMENTS considers the ways public monuments have shaped national identity, historical memory, and current events. Following the racially motivated mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC (2015) and the deadly 'Unite the Right' rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA (2017), alongside Bree Newsome’s powerful removal of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse (2015), the United States witnessed the decommissioning of nearly 200 monuments. These removals prompted a national debate that remains ongoing. MONUMENTS aims to historicize these discussions in our current moment and provide a space for crucial discourse and active engagements about challenging topics.   

MONUMENTS 
Co-curated by: 
Hamza Walker, Director of The Brick 
Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator at MOCA 
Kara Walker, artist 
Hannah Burstein, Curatorial Associate at The Brick 
Paula Kroll, Assistant Curator at MOCA 

MONUMENTS features newly commissioned artworks by contemporary artists Bethany Collins, Abigail DeVille, Karon Davis, Stan Douglas, Kahlil Robert Irving, Cauleen Smith, Kevin Jerome Everson, Walter Price, Monument Lab, Davóne Tines and Julie Dash, and Kara Walker. Additional artworks by Leonardo Drew, Torkwase Dyson, Nona Faustine, Jon Henry, Hugh Mangum, Martin Puryear, Andres Serrano, and Hank Willis Thomas, are borrowed from private collectors and institutions.  

The exhibition presents decommissioned monuments borrowed from the City of Baltimore, Maryland; the City of Montgomery, Alabama; The Jefferson School for African American Heritage, Charlottesville, Virginia; the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond; the Valentine, Richmond, Virginia; and The Daniels Family Charitable Foundation, Raleigh, North Carolina. By juxtaposing these objects with contemporary works, the exhibition expands the context in which they are understood and highlights the gaps and omissions in popular narratives of American history.   

Presented by USC Visions and Voices.