A book review for Sixty Inches From Center
January 2021

”Calling it a wall is somewhat of a misnomer. Although the most widely circulated visual documentation of the wall depicts it as a shapeshifting mural with many artists collaging it with words, paintings, and photographs over its years, the memories and oral histories that have been carried forward after the building was demolished let us know that it was much more than a canvas for a mural. It was a stage and a rallying point. It was a celebration and articulation of liberatory and radically imaginative agendas and expressions. It was, and is, a provocation and a source for memory and material. It is one of the many legacies that can be tapped into when artists, particularly Black artists, want to be reminded of the artistic strategies and methodologies that are available to (re)activate within a contemporary context, as our current times hold many of the same social and political grievances and also the markers of a cultural renaissance and golden era.”

Each contribution to the book is anchored by the concept of a fleeting monument, defined by Crawford as a new form of monument making that gives an expansive view for how we articulate “spaces, events, and scenarios that are underdiscussed or erased historically, that might warrant marking, but in a manner that is less than monumental, that is in some way anti-heroic, unstatic, and in no way timeless.” Crawford goes on to say, “in effect, Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect offers a retort to the current monument fever, addressing the problem of monuments by amplifying an alternative history of praiseworthy sites and subjects.”

Using something that no longer exists in physical form as a jumping off point, Fleeting Monuments acts as a complementary text for and documented evidence of how artists and organizers are carrying the essence and energies of the Wall of Respect into today. The book provides examples of how artists are harnessing ephemeral and time-based tactics to disrupt the ways that failing systems and destructive histories have been celebrated on city streets, in public parks, and in the pages of our (text)books. It is a companion piece for the ongoing and recent efforts to revise and interrogate the integrity of United States history as told through the public statues, commemorative symbols, and memories that linger, lurch, or are absent throughout the country. And yet it is also a call to make more visible an approach to commemoration that honors life, joy, and our unbreakable bonds with one another.

Read the full article here….

[1] A view of the cover of the book Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect sitting on a black surface. The front cover has a sideways image of a public statue in the process of being taken down, with a partly cloudy blue sky in the background. The cover text reads “Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect” in orange lettering and “Romi Crawford, Editor” in black lettering. The book’s cover photo was provided courtesy of Valerie Cassel Oliver, 2020. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel.

[2] The book Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect is open to pages 14 and 15, showing a 1967 photo by Robert Sengstacke of The Wall of Respect in Chicago. You see a street-level view of a mural composed of over a dozen portraits of historic figures painted on the side of a two-story building. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel.

[3] The book Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect is open to pages 230 and 230, showing the cell phone photos that art historian Mechtild Widrich took of William Walker’s mural “Childhood is Without Prejudice (also called “Children of Goodwill”) located in Hyde Park Chicago. You see detailed street-level views of the mural, which includes larger-than-life portraits of children with their hands together holding a globe. The largest detailed image has a Rousseau quote painted white on a black background that reads “You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all and the earth itself to nobody.” Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel.