(NEWARK, NJ) On April 29, 2021, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka announced that the City of Newark is calling on Newark residents to share their feedback on proposals submitted by the five finalists selected to design the new Harriet Tubman Monument. Five critically acclaimed artists: Abigail DeVille, Dread Scott, Jules Arthur, Nina Cooke John, and Vinnie Bagwell, were chosen by a jury to submit their designs.
January 27, 2021
Join Next City for the first of two virtual conversations in our series, “The Future of Monumentality,” as we examine the past, present, and future of public monuments from the unique intersection of art, design, and urbanism. The speaker series, moderated by New York Times critic Salamishah Tillet, is co-presented in partnership with the High Line.
In 2020 communities around the world protested the institutional racism of police violence toward Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people the same people who have experienced disproportionately devastating health effects and economic hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the most powerful symbols engaged by these protests has been the removal and defacing of monuments, as well as their use as focal points and backdrops for rallies, speeches, performances, and collections of protest signs. And as the disturbing insurrection in Washington, D.C., has shown, white supremacists continue to wield and deface monuments
Print
As part of its social justice public art initiative, the City of Newark collaborated with hundreds of activists, community members, and artists to make definitive statements on, literally, two of the city’s better-known streets. Halsey Street, adjacent to Rutgers University–Newark, now has a mural featuring 25-foot-tall letters painted in traffic-yellow brightness that spell ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard now bears the words ABOLISH WHITE SUPREMACY.
Among the artists contributing were students in the graphic design program in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media at Rutgers–Newark. The collaboration reunited community members in a city and an art scene hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Chantal Fischzang, an assistant professor in the program, organized 40 students to work with 40 local artists to draft and outline the mural’s letterforms. The Murals for Justice Newark were designed using a typeface called Martin, named for Marti