Artist Kehinde Wiley describes the historical Confederate statues in the middle of Richmond as “designed to terrorize and menace.”
One statue depicts cavalry commander Gen. J.E.B. Stuart sitting upon a muscular horse, striking a heroic pose. That was the inspiration for Wiley’s new statue of a black man with dreads straddling a horse in a similar pose.
The NPR Story
A similar bronze sculpture has been installed about a mile from Jeb Stuart. It portrays a black man with dreads, wearing a hoodie and Nike sneakers (Nike uses Chinese slave labor – ironic).
The statue is called Rumors of War. It was built by Wiley, widely known for painting the official portrait of President Barack Obama.
After spending several weeks on display in Times Square, the three-story-tall statue was officially unveiled Tuesday at its permanent home. It sits in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“It is monumental and not just a figure of speech. It is truly monumental, in terms of its ability to be a seismic shift in how we perceive and how we understand ourselves as people living here,” Valerie Cassel Oliver, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art, told NPR.
The museum wrote that the new sculpture “commemorates African American youth lost to the social and political battles being waged throughout our nation.”
Julian Hayter, a historian and associate professor at the University of Richmond, sees Wiley’s installation as a way to push back against minimizing slavery and racism in the Civil War.
It’s also 1984. If they control the past, they can control the future. Eventually, this theme will replace all of history.
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That statue looks like a gay, or transgender pseudo black man.
Now that OL’ Hero Confederate Army General“J.E.B.” Stuart created by Frederick Moynihant has been taken away. We are allowed to be “offended” by this nauseatingly trite absurd statue. wholey finded by the VMOA and ~100+NYC liberal donors.(If only they spend that money and energy to secure and preserve our heritage statues). You know ones containing figures that actually made history…not… Read more »
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if he were shown hijacking a Honda on horseback?
A piece of shit posing as art. It should be removed. It signifies nothing more than anarchy aimed at rubbing whitey’s nose into the ground.
Wakanda was made up too. Sucks to have to make up holidays and heroes.
They hung the guy on the horse when the artist was done. Turns out he stole the horse!
Well lawdy lawd you shore can tell they knows they history, they shore do.