Graffitied/Splashed/Toppled/Removed/Shattered: Public monuments in this extraordinary moment, by Howard Skrill (a slide show)

Author of the article

We are in the midst of a moment of epochal transformation with the demand that the landscape of American memory, as embodied in figurative public monuments, must be reassessed. This, often wrenching reassessments, had resulted in the alteration of these monuments through additions and removals aimed at correcting historical erasures that have resulted in systematic biases extending into the present. My latest works on paper are perhaps an inevitable progression from the practice I launched in 2013, when I would carry around a folding chair and whatever materials I could fit in my paint-smeared backpack to make plein air drawings of public monuments in walking distance from my Brooklyn home where I have lived for decades with my wife. The monumental transformations that I have faithfully represented in my recent studio works on paper document objects broken by hammers, chisels and human hands, obscured by markers, spray paint, and plastic wrap and ultimately brought down by lassos and cranes. Works from the series are being exhibited and published widely.

More of Howard Skrill's work can be found in the following publications:

New Reader Magazine, "Convalescence”, June 2022 | Vol. 5 Issue 18, article entitled “Art about Art Being Destroyed”, an interview by Chino Castañeros on pages 22-24, https://www.newreadermagazine.com

Catalog for exhibition 'Who Writes History, Summer 2022 at ArtsWestchester, https://artswestchester.org/who-writes-history/#wwh_catalogue

December Magazine, Winter Issue, https://decembermag.org/current-issue-32-2/

Artterrain, Letter to America, The Changing Landscape of Public Memory | Works on Paper By Howard Skrill, NOVEMBER 17, 2021, https://www.terrain.org/2021/arterrain/howard-skrill/

Howard Skrill: Monumental Follies, Virtual exhibition opening on June 4, 2020, Fairfield University Art Museum, https://www.fairfield.edu/museum/skrill/