RICHMOND, Va. — The 1,500-pound bronze statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, which was torn down by protesters in 2020, began its 2,600-mile journey to a Los Angeles museum Tuesday.
The statue will go on loan from The Valentine Museum in Richmond to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles where it will be featured in an exhibit with other Confederate monuments from around the country.
"Does this resonate with folks from around the world? We think it does. That's why we're excited for it to go," said Christina Vida, The Elise H. Wright Curator of the General Collection at the Valentine. "They're really sort of exploring the ways in which art can be used to contextualize this moment in history with so many Confederate monuments being pulled down."
Work crews took nearly two hours to move the statue from its display in the Valentine, a level of delicacy and care that was in stark contrast to how it was last relocated when protesters pulled it down from Monument Avenue during the 2020 protests.
"It certainly has this great 2020 history," Vida said. "We've preserved all of its 2020 history. It's 1907 history is, of course, still embedded in it."
The statue has been on display in the Valentine for the past three years, laid on its back to mirror how it was on Monument Avenue after it was torn down. Vida said it will be in the same position in L.A.
"We really wanted to make sure that this piece was not ever going to be used to perpetuate the myth of the Lost Cause. And so, by having it displayed in its 2020 state, we can really ensure that it's helping to undo some of the damage that it did for so long here in Richmond," Vida said.
The curator notes that the display has sparked important conversations during its three years at the Valentine.
"Having an elderly woman say, 'This is a beautiful piece of art. I don't understand why it got pulled down,'. And then, having another member on that tour say 'But, it stands for the pro-slavery movement,'. And seeing the two of them sort of navigate that conversation together in polite ways, right, and not devolve into shouts, is such a juxtaposition from what we see on social media," said Vida. "People are actually quite civil to each other. And so, to have those experiences here, I think, just goes to show that's why museums are so central in thinking not only about the history of these objects, but about their future as well."
Vida said the Valentine will determine what that future is while the Davis statue is on loan until April. She said their museum and the Black History Museum, which also owns some of the city's Confederate monuments, received over 7,000 written comments (and over 2,000 sticky notes next to the Davis statue) from visitors about what they want to see done.
Vida said while the Davis statue is on one level a piece of bronze covered in paint, with proper context, it can serve a greater purpose.
"Our mission is to tell the history of the Richmond region, and so we're going to keep it in our collection and continue to tell those stories," Vida said.
Vida said next week, the musem will install one of the basketball hoops that protesters put up at Lee Circle, which they renamed Marcus David Peters Circle during the summer of 2020, in the space previously occupied by the Davis statue.
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