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The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project expands with $500 million commitment

2023-11-28T14:27:00-05:00

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s influential Monuments Project is about to expand its reach thanks to a newly-announced commitment of $500 million to the now three-year-old initiative that has to date provided 80 projects worth a total of $170 million nationwide.

The amount effectively doubles the available resources from the original $250 million pool that was established at the outset. Reformers targeting America’s “commemorative landscape” have to date provided superlative examples of how to best repair the nation’s psychic wounds, including the forthcoming Memorial to the 1871 Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles and the recent Beyond Granite exhibition for the National Mall in Washington.

The money represents the Mellon Foundation’s largest-ever financial commitment and will be put towards further recognition of the contributions different marginalized groups have made to the United States from the Colonial era on.

Related on Archinect: The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project aw...

Monument Lab’s thought-provoking sculptural installation opens on the National Mall

2023-08-22T18:04:00-04:00

An important new sculptural installation commissioned by the Trust for the National Mall opened in Washington, D.C. last week to the acclaim of critics and visitors who helped inaugurate the seminal first edition of the Beyond Granite series from Philadelphia-based collective Monument Lab.

Images of the six sculptures designed by artists Wendy Red Star, Derrick Adams, vanessa german, Ashon T. Crawley, Tiffany Chung, and Paul Ramírez Jonas were shared, showcasing the beginnings of what should be one of the year’s most significant public art exhibitions. Written in the Washington Post over the weekend, Philip Kennicott commended the new installation as being both well produced and thoughtful, adding that “this is the first time a serious art exhibition has been staged there” before remarking on the role of the Mall as a protest space.

Paul Ramírez Jonas, "Let Freedom Ring" Image: Courtesy of AJ Mitchell | Monument Lab

Other reviews highlighted the unique ability of each sculpture to co...

Monument Lab announces major new commission on the National Mall in Washington

2023-07-26T15:49:00-04:00

Philadelphia-based studio Monument Lab has been announced as the curatorial leader of a new public art installation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The pilot exhibition of the Trust’s new Beyond Granite series will be on view for a month (August 18th to September 18th) and feature a response to the program’s thematic question about whose stories “remain untold” at the important site using a selection of six prototype monuments designed by artists Wendy Red Star, Derrick Adams, vanessa german, Ashon T. Crawley, Tiffany Chung, and Paul Ramírez Jonas.

Monument Lab founding Director Paul Farber and last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Criticism winner Salamishah Tillet are co-curating the exhibition and say it will treat the monuments as “a statement of power and presence in public.”

“Beyond Granite: Pulling Together builds out platforms for artist-led civic engagement, historical interpretation, and storytelling as a means for advancing what it means to imagine, build, live, and g...

The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project awards $25 million worth of grant funding to 9 municipalities

2023-06-19T10:00:00-04:00

A total of nine local municipalities have received funding in the amount of $25 million from the Mellon Foundation as part of its ongoing Monuments Project, which to date has provided $151.9 million worth of grants since its inception in 2020.

The latest round of funding includes projects such as Los Angeles’ forthcoming memorial to victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre, and the Portland, Oregon, effort to replace five of its toppled monuments that were destroyed in the wake of the George Floyd protests three summers ago.

Read more about the nine grant recipients and their funded projects:

Asheville, North Carolina – "The City of Asheville will receive funding to reshape Pack Square Plaza through commemorative projects, storytelling and oral history initiatives, and redesigning portions of the plaza to better represent the multicultural histories of Asheville and cultivate a more welcoming space for all. This includes support for construction of Boosting the Block, an effort to estab...

Mellon Foundation announces $250M "Monuments Project" to reimagine the way history is told in the U.S.

2020-10-05T16:51:00-04:00

Today, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a new five-year, $250 million grant effort called the "Monuments Project," which will "transform the way our country's histories are told in public spaces." Grants made under the new initiative will fall under three areas of activity:

Funding new monuments, memorials, or historic storytelling spaces
Contextualizing existing monuments or memorials through installations, research, and education
Relocating existing monuments or memorials

Created in response to the national outcry on racial and social injustice, the Foundation intends to "recalibrate the assumed center of our national narratives to include those who have often been denied historical recognition."

"Monuments, memorials, and other commemorative spaces convey both individual narratives and national values,” said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander in a statement. “They shape the histories of who we are and influence ongoing discussion about which people in our socie...