LaToya Ruby Frazier : Monuments of Solidarity
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Sandra Gould Ford Wearing Her Work Jacket and Hard Hat in Her Meditation Room in Homewood, PA from On the Making of Steel Genesis: Sandra Gould Ford, 2017 © 2023 LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone gallery.
LaToya Ruby Frazier : Monuments of Solidarity
May 12, 2024 – September 07, 2024
The Museum of Modern Art
Written by: Trip Avis
LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity
The United States is littered with stone, bronze, and marble monuments commemorating individuals many would like to forget. Our collective perception of ourselves as a nation is fluid and everchanging. As we tear down painful reminders of those who represented oppression, we lift up and celebrate individuals who champion and reflect this shift toward greater equality, freedom, and recognition. They don’t need to be celebrities or politicians to be heroes or worth retelling their stories. LaToya Ruby Frazier encapsulates that. The Museum of Modern Art presents Monuments of Solidarity, the first museum overview of the wide reach of the artist and activist's compelling work. Just as it is a first for Frazier herself, it is a first in recognition of individuals whose livelihoods and efforts have often been sidelined or deemed inconsequential by those writing our history. Co-organizer Roxana Marcoci describes the exhibition as “a form of Black feminist world-building; these nontraditional monuments demand recognition of the crucial role that women and people of color have played and continue to play within histories of labor and the working class, of who and what is worth celebrating.”
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Marilyn Moore, UAW Local 1112, Women’s Committee and Retiree Executive Board, (Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., Lear Seating Corp., 32 years in at GM Lordstown Complex, Assembly Plant, Van Plant, Metal Fab, Trim Shop), with her General Motors retirement gold ring on her index finger, Youngstown, OH from The Last Cruze, 2019 © 2023 LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone gallery.
While the eyes are often deemed the windows to the soul, in the photograph Marilyn Moore [...] with her General Motors retirement gold ring [...], Frazier captures the regality and wisdom seen in an older person's hands. In the black-and-white image, Moore, a United Auto Workers union member, clasps her hands on a table, her beringed fingers telling a chapter in her life story. The image is taken from Fraizer’s 2019 project, The Last Cruze, which documents the experiences of auto union workers amidst an impending plant shutdown. There is dignity in Moore’s hands, pridefully displaying the ring that is an emblem of her years of hard work; one can perhaps sense an unease beneath her solemn posturing. Retirement closes a chapter, but a workplace shutdown is an untethering and nerve-wracking experience—the forced closing of a door in life. The photograph is a monument to a woman who gave years of her life to a place that will soon be erased; however, her work and experiences are permanent.
Shea Brushing Zion’s Teeth with Bottled Water in Her Bathroom, Flint, Michigan, is an image that is haunting in its implications but shows the strength in determination—in continuing in the face of callous disregard—displayed by the residents of Flint, Michigan, a city faced with
LaToya Ruby Frazier. Photography by Sean Eaton. Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art.
rampant environmental racism. Through her Flint is Family in Three Acts (2016—2020), Frazier intimately welcomes viewers into an uneasy and long-winded situation that many around the United States knew about but did not want to face, but like the tangibility of a monument, ignoring the problem does not erase it from existence. At first glance, the photograph seems wholesome on the surface, an adorable kid messing around and catching water from a bottle. To anyone familiar with the devastating impact of the Flint Water Crisis on the residents of the predominately black Michigan city, you quickly realize that Shea and her daughter Zion are not having a silly moment for the camera. Rather, they are performing a necessity due to the unsafe conditions of the tap water, something many people in the United States take for granted. It is a deeply undesirable situation that the family contends with, but through these images, they show their resilience.
LaToya Ruby Frazier’s monuments may not depict the names and faces—both hallowed and reviled—of people often associated with this nation's historical foundation. Still, they honor the strength, courage, and determination of people who are just as much the backbone of our nation. Frazier’s work may depict moments of struggle or uncertainty, but one would be remiss to discount the underlying current of hope. That hope is our solidarity.
LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from May 12 to September 7, 2024.
