Hope & Dread Extra: Hamza Walker
Hope & Dread Extra: Hamza Walker brings you more from a season favorite—Hamza Walker, the director of LAXART in Los Angeles—who talks about an exhibition of decommissioned Confederate monuments he is co-organizing with artist Kara Walker.
Hope & Dread Extra is a series of short, sharp bonus episodes featuring your season favorites from Hope & Dread. Our guests were brimming with additional ideas and extra insights that we just didn’t have room for within the documentary series. But we didn’t want to leave them on the cutting room floor. Join hosts Charlotte Burns and Allan Schwartzman for new Hope & Dread Extra every Tuesday and Thursday.
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Transcript:
Charlotte Burns:
This is Hope & Dread Extra. I’m Charlotte Burns.
Allan Schwartzman:
And I’m Allan Schwartzman.
Charlotte Burns:
Hope & Dread was a program about the tectonic shifts in power in art. We’ve heard from people who are making change and from people who are resisting change.
Our guests were brimming with ideas and off-topic thoughts that we just didn’t have room for within the documentary series. But we didn’t want to leave them on the cutting-room floor. So now, we’re bringing you a set of short, sharp bonus episodes featuring some of your season favorites, which we’ll be dropping twice a week.
Today we’re bringing you more from Hamza Walker, director of LAXART and co-curator of an upcoming exhibition featuring recently decommissioned confederate monuments, which we covered in episode two, “American History, Axed”.
Here Hamza talks about how to plan a show about history as it’s happening and about the artists on his wishlist. He begins by talking about the events that led up to the decommissioning of Confederate monuments.
Hamza Walker:
The first wave of decommissioning started in 2015, as a result of the shooting at the church in Charleston, South Carolina. And Bree Newsome [Bass], who just shortly thereafter climbed up and took down the Confederate flag from the State Capitol, that was kind of the beginning. Right? What about this ubiquitous symbol? To really say, enough is enough. And things have got to change, right? So that was really a breaking point.
So fast forward two years later. In response to that shooting, Mitch Landrieu, the Mayor of New Orleans, was the first mayor to get the approval from the city council and then to proceed with the taking down of the city's Confederate monuments.
So New Orleans was the first to fall. And then following suit, right after New Orleans, Charlottesville, Virginia. Now, you've got to recognize, remember that Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. So Charlottesville was next in line. That sparked the “Unite the Right” rally, at which Heather Heyer was killed.
So then, in response to the “Unite the Right” rally, then things picked up. Then Baltimore, Gainesville, Silent Sam in North Carolina. So, at the time that we started planning the exhibition, there were only a universe of 40 monuments.
And the second wave is obviously after the murder of George Floyd. So we initiated discussions with Baltimore, was one of the first places that I went to, to talk to Eric Holcomb, who's a fabulous guy, to see about securing the loan of a quartet of statues that had come down. And then I went to Austin, Texas in early 2020 to meet with the stewards of a group of them that had come down at the University of Texas. And again, that was the first wave. And they were the curators and the director of the [Dolph] Briscoe Center for American Studies at the University of Texas [at] Austin.
So I had just started reaching out to municipalities when the pandemic had hit. And then we have the murder of George Floyd, and we went from a universe of 35 or so statues to suddenly 150, overnight, basically within 30 days.
Charlotte Burns:
Wow.
Hamza Walker:
So then the tone and the tenor of the exhibition changed in the space of that time. From these monuments were the source of contention, certainly, but they were not the source of shame. So after the murder of George Floyd, that contention, it's a mixture of shame and contention.
So this is playing itself out right now in real time, as an issue. So we found ourselves suddenly, I wasn't expecting to be in the middle of debates about, okay now they come down, now what to do with them? And what role do we play in the fate of these monuments?
So the idea that we can both take these monuments off your hands. If you don't want them back, fine. We'll just take them to the local smelter, you know. Or, we can give them to artists to repurpose. So suddenly having that discussion at the core of the exhibition, in terms of what our role can be in relationship to these things, and in terms of opening up a space of potential re-envisioning of what a monument is. What do you do with the pedestals, can something else go there? Should the bronze be returned to the community? You know, is it just down with bronze in general? Right? No more statues, no more gods, no more masters.
But I do think by the time the show opens, all that will really have happened is more of them will have come down and more places will find themselves in situations of having to figure out what to do with them.
The Daniels family, Josephus Daniels, the founder of one of the largest, I think it's still the largest newspaper in North Carolina. And he was a white supremacist, and he was one of the agitators, one of the mouthpieces for, using his paper for the Wilmington massacre. I think it's 1899. Which is pretty much the only coup of an elected government to have happened on U.S. soil. But he was the founder of the newspaper, and the family had erected a statue of him in 1985, I believe. But before it could be torn down, the family took it down. And they're going to loan us the piece for the show. But it involved a meeting with the surviving members of the Daniels family, which is a very prominent family in North Carolina.
They took the statue down. And they know what grandpa, great-grandpa did, in some sense, what he stood for. But he was a figure in full. Now, is he a product of the time in full? Yes. He actually supported suffragettes, for example. You know. The women's right to vote. So there was some good, and there was some bad. He's a figure in full. And so it was a very beautiful dialogue and discussion with the family. About, you know, but can we get to a place where we aren't shouting at one another? And we can actually weigh, measure, and assess? Right? And so it was a much more tender discussion with the family about ... And their willingness to participate was kind of the point of the exhibition.
Charlotte Burns:
Yeah. And then, what are contemporary artists, how are they going to engage with the statues? Or you don't know yet?
Hamza Walker:
Don't know yet. Each of the statues has its own story and history. For example, it looks like Bradenton, Florida is on board. And I think it was the county commissioner, a really progressive cat. And Bradenton, Florida had, has a 15-foot granite obelisk. And when they went to take it down, something went awry with the crane and they dropped it and it broke. And the county commissioner said, "Well, wait. It's broken." And I said, "Yes, I know. And I want it broken, specifically." And I said, "There's a very famous piece of art by Barnett Newman called Broken Obelisk. And I think that you know, I'm not going to be able to borrow Broken Obelisk, but it'd be nice to have a broken obelisk, if not the Broken Obelisk." You know. So. And he was really tickled by that idea. He actually got that insider art historical joke.
So, there are certain pieces where an artist can't touch the piece, right, we're borrowing it. It's still an artifact of whatever value we're going to follow all museum protocols, that we then have to return.
There are some pieces that are damaged, and those pieces, they have, just in terms of graffiti, what's been done to them, they've been set on fire, they've been decapitated. That there's an energy there, with these damaged works. It adds a kind of energy to the show, that we literally, artists in a lot of cases won't be able to, even if they're commissioned to do a work that responds to a piece, to what extent can they actually physically engage the piece? In a lot of cases, it'll be a no-go. So there's a whole list of artists that I'm looking at now who I would just simply like to borrow pre-existing works. Just because the juxtaposition with some of the statuary is so strong.
But in terms of commissioning, it depends on which pieces we get, in some sense. And that'll determine which artists I might approach.
Charlotte Burns:
And there are so few civic spaces in the U.S. where you can have these kinds of conversations. And you're taking that and you're doubling down on that, essentially.
Hamza Walker:
Absolutely. Let's make good. What are we here for? What do we do? You want something to talk about? You want some content? This is what museums should be doing. It's like, you know.
This is what time it is. This is the issue. If we're really going to talk about what are major issues, even if confined strictly to the sphere of culture—which this is not, it's far bigger than that.
So hopefully, fingers crossed, if he'll let me, Andres Serrano. To use this as an occasion to gather and show all of The Klan Portraits, from 1991 [The Klan, 1990], for example. That's one of the things on the wish list. But given what was said about the Philip Guston show, it's like, oh hell no. You want something to cry about? Like, Philip Guston, it's like, shit. Philip Guston? Really? Is that what ... You're afraid of Philip Guston? It's like, no. Serrano did these photographs 30 years ago, and if you put one of those photographs up now, hell would be rained down on you as an institution.
And so it's like, "Well while we're at it with these, let's use these statuary as a shield." So look, if Jesse Jackson is going to come and picket your shit, you don't just want to have him there because of Philip Guston." Like, if you're going to do it, do it. If you're going to get into trouble, well it's like, go there. Right?
Don't just, it's like, no, no, no. The concerns, and the sensitivities. They're kind of ... It's like, and I respect them and I understand them. But it's like, oh no, no. No, no, no. You can keep them. Let me just give you another place to park them. I think this is a much more ... This is what you actually meant. This is where you need to, you know if you're going to be riled up.
Charlotte Burns:
Right. If you're going to dance with the devil, you may as well make it a waltz.
Hamza Walker:
Yeah. Right, right, right. What's great about Serrano is just like, he swims in these waters. You know, it's a kind of artwork that, from the get-go, and the initial, it's as though we have an amnesia about that first round of culture wars. So to have, you know, now that stuff's got a patina on it. It's historical. So now, to be able to ... It's like, with Serrano it's just kind of, like, you can see him, he's like, "Bring it."
Charlotte Burns:
The show is called Hope & Dread. And when you look forward, do you feel hope or dread?
Hamza Walker:
Oh, both. Oh, both. I mean, it's always going to be a mixture. I mean, at the end of the day, when you were characterizing progress perhaps as a spiral, or setbacks, and sometimes what looks like a total mess and a very painful discussion, to then, on the upside, to think about those as symptoms of growth.
But there are those things about which I do worry. No doubt. The attempts at voter suppression, and my utter offense at the notion of something like Qanon. You know, people running around here with a sense of being victimized, just based on some insane theories, while at the same time there are people who are being disenfranchised and who would have a right to be concerned about their very real victimization.
But what has happened, and what the fallout is, the very real consequences, and how long it will take to repair what has just happened, I don't think it can be overstated.
But at the end of the day, do I think of those things, perhaps, as a setback, perhaps with an overall trajectory of progress or change for the good? Yeah. I want to believe that. But is this a moment in which those setbacks are very grave and very, very real, and are cause for serious concern and reflection? About the nature of the social fabric, its atomization, campaigns of disinformation. It's a profound distrust of the government and of journalism and an inability to agree upon a verifiable truth about which I am happy to debate at this point. That's great. If we're debating about something we can agree that exists for real, that's a good thing. You know. But the problem is, we aren’t all seeing things. What is that reality? And it just seems like there are lots of symptoms and signs for which I feel concerned. So that's the dread part. But in the end, you know, I am hopeful.
Charlotte Burns:
For more from Hamza, tune in to episode two of Hope & Dread, “American History, Axed” and to episode 12, “Are You Sitting Uncomfortably?”.
Listen to Hope & Dread Extra every Tuesday and Thursday and subscribe wherever it is you find your podcasts.
Hope & Dread is brought to you by Art&, the new editorial platform created by Schwartzman&.
The executive producer is Allan Schwartzman, who co-hosts the show together with me, Charlotte Burns of Studio Burns, which produces the series.
Robert Bound is our associate editor.
Holly Fisher mixes and edits the sound.
Additional research has been provided by Julia Hernandez.
And our theme music by the inimitable Philip Glass.
