Art historian Marisa Lerer works on modern and contemporary art in Latin America and Latinx art, with a specific focus on monuments as sites of public memory. Her talk will draw upon the themes introduced by the exhibition Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy and expand outward to consider the history of monuments dedicated to Latinx and Latin American figures in the United States and beyond.

This lecture forms part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation and is co-sponsored by the program in Latinx, Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

This talk will be livestreamed. Want to join us for the in-person lecture? Click here to register.

About the Exhibition: Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy (organized by The New York Historical) explores monuments and their representations in public spaces as flashpoints of fierce debate over national identity, politics, and race that have raged for centuries. Offering a historical foundation for understanding today’s controversies, the exhibition features fragments of a statue of King George III torn down by American Revolutionaries, a souvenir replica of a bulldozed monument by Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage, and a maquette of New York City’s first public monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman, among other objects from The New York Historical’s collection. The exhibition reveals how monument-making and monument-breaking have long shaped American life as public statues have been celebrated, attacked, protested, altered, and removed. For more information, click here.

* This event is a part of Fairfield University Explores 250 Years of the American Experiment: The Promise and Paradox *

Image: Judith F. Baca, Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice, San José State University, San José, California, 2005-2008.