Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century

"Unmonumental" introduces the world to a significant recent development in art that takes the definition of sculpture as an autonomous object and shatters it to pieces. Rather than cast or carved, these sculptures have been cobbled together from bits of the world at large. Less dedicated to memory, the works in this show are of their moment, making gentle or high mockery of a wide range of histories, employing a variety of 'neo-traditionalisms' that riff on everything from Russian Constructivism to 1980s appropriation. Far from paying tribute to received notions of the courageous, they are patently anti-heroic. In short, they are a metaphor for our times. "Unmonumental" will be published on the occasion of the inaugural exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art's landmark new building (designed by Sejima and Nishazawa/SANAA) on the Bowery in New York.