ST. LOUIS, MO.- Monuments and memorials occupy complicated and often contested spaces of national identification. They commemorate tragic events. They honor the victims of wars, colonization and revolutions. But they also celebrate ideals of national power and unity in ways that shape our collective identity, sanitize violent — even genocidal — pasts and prioritize the viewpoints of the victors.

Over the last decade, artist Sam Durant has investigated these issues and crafted proposals that recast the monument as an artistic form of political critique, focusing on complex topics such as racism against black Americans and the exploitation and massacre of Native Americans.

This spring, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Sam Durant: Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, D.C.” This large-scale installation, on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, consists of 30 minimalist sculptures, each appropriating the form of an existing monument to white and Indian victims killed between the 17th century and the end of the so-called Indian Wars in 1890.

The sources of Durant’s appropriations all share certain characteristics. All are permanent markers, all commemorate massacres involving groups of whites and Native Americans (as opposed to individuals) and all reference the traditional obelisk. Yet of the 30 he was able to identify, only five honor Native American victims. Tellingly, the majority of those — erected by whites in the 19th and early 20th century — memorialize “friendly Indians” who, to varying degrees, had been assimilated into white society.

“These monuments were erected by whites to serve their own interests and do not represent Indian perspectives, experiences or interests,” Durant writes in an artist statement. While violence is undoubtedly central to many war memorials, the task of memorials “is to justify and validate the loss of life as a necessary sacrifice …. The monuments do not raise questions about the conflicts or the use of violence, nor do they reveal the powerful interests that drove these conflicts.”

That disparity is evident not only in the sheer number of monuments, but also by the asymmetry of their contemporary contexts. For example, Durant points out that the Little Bighorn battlefield — where in 1876 Gen. George Custer led 260 men of the 7th Calvary to their deaths — is now a national park, complete with gift shop and visitor’s center. But the monument to Wounded Knee, where that same 7th Calvary massacred 200 virtually unarmed Lakota in 1890, languishes in a run-down graveyard on the Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the most impoverished places in the United States.

Though varying in size and detail, all of the monuments appropriated by Durant share a strong vertical thrust that pointedly resembles the massive stone structure of the world’s tallest obelisk: the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Indeed, the artist’s installation is a proposal to relocate the existing massacre memorials to the Mall. Monuments to white dead would be located on either side of the reflecting pool. Monuments to Indian dead would be installed on the lawn in front of the Washington Monument.

In addition to a scale model of the sculptures on the National Mall, Durant’s room-sized installation consists of the 30 large forms, all painted a homogenous gray, and constructed from MDF (medium-density fibreboard), fiberglass, foam, enamel, copper, basswood and birch veneer. These relatively impermanent — and sometimes incompatible — materials allude to the aesthetics of minimalism, appropriation art and the ready-made object while simultaneously criticizing the commanding authority of the obelisk, as evinced through its monumental presence and sense of permanence.

The result is a new artistic form, a hybrid of sorts, that Durant employs to interrogate America’s foundational narrative; to illuminate the significance of Native Americans to this narrative; and to demonstrate how it continues to advance unequal power relations today.

“Sam Durant: Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, D.C.” is curated by Sabine Eckmann, PhD, the William T. Kemper Director and Chief Curator of the Kemper Art Museum.