Indiana History Journal Examines Public Art/Race and Controversy

IUPUI ARTS AND HUMANITIES INSTITUTE

Artist Fred Wilson envisioned re-purposing the statue to give him a new identity and new meaning.

INDIANA---Art, race and space fill the most recent issue of the Indiana Magazine of History. In an issue guest-edited by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis public historian Modupe Labode, leading scholars of public art and urban life show how art can reveal fault lines in modern society. The March 2014 issue features four articles reflecting on the artwork that prompted IUPUI’s recent symposium, “Art, Race and Space”: artist Fred Wilson’s proposed “E Pluribus Unum” sculpture, which re-imagined a new identity for the freed slave portrayed on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in downtown Indianapolis. Wilson’s work, commissioned for the city’s Cultural Trail, was ultimately canceled after long and intense public controversy. [link]