DCist: These Boundary-Pushing Art Installations Will Take Over The National Mall This Month

DCist / by Elliot C. Williams / Published August 11, 2023

Later this month, the National Mall will become the site of six temporary art installations — the first time the Mall’s federal overseers have hosted an art exhibit there.

As part of Beyond Granite, Monument Lab released a 2021 study concluding that the U.S. monument landscape is overwhelmingly white male-dominated. Of the 50 most represented individuals in U.S. monuments, only five were Black or Indigenous, and there were no U.S.-born Latinx, Pacific Islander, or self-identified LGBTQ+ people. At least half of the top 50 figures owned slaves.

Given these gaps in representation, the agencies involved will use this pilot to help guide their public programs and installations going forward, [Beyond Granite: Pulling Together co-curator Dr. Salamishah] Tillet says. “It’s a remarkable moment in which we’re actually continuing this process of democracy and asking people what they would like to see,” she adds, “and what makes them feel like they belong to the Mall, to D.C., and to our country at large.”