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A portion of the River City Roll mural in Scott's Addition (Photo by Craig Belcher)
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Another view of the River City Roll mural in Scott's Addition (Photo by Craig Belcher)
As the Monument Avenue Commission prepares its recommendation about what to do with that street’s row of statues of Confederate leaders, other groups aren’t waiting for the mayor-appointed group to have the last word.
At Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts (aka VCUarts), they’re holding a competition to “reimagine” Confederate statues. The competition is fueled by a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and will be accepting designs until Dec. 1. The winners will be announced at a reception on Nov. 20, 2019.
At River City Roll, a 22,000-square-foot "boutique" bowling alley in Scott’s Addition that opened in April, they’ve already unveiled an alternate version of the statues on Monument Avenue. A large mural on the side of the building switches out two of the Confederate generals for bowlers.
“We’ve got the monuments, but they can be looked at in a different way, and this seemed like a perfect idea. They make nice bowling trophies,” says mural artist Mickael Broth. “This had been an idea that [fellow artist] Ross [Trimmer of Surehand Signs] had been kicking around for a while … recontextualizing the monuments in way that’s fun, inclusive and … basically connects to Richmond's reputation.”
Elsewhere on the mural, a woman dressed in antiquarian garb is painted beside the words “Having a monumental time in Richmond.”
As for reaction to the mural, “So far it’s been real positive. I wasn’t sure how people would react; it’s a controversial issue,” Broth says.
Indeed, this Saturday a group calling itself “CSA II: The New Confederate States of America” returns to Monument Avenue for a third time to “protect” the statues from being removed or replaced. Their first visit, in September of last year, on the heels of a violent protest over a Confederate statute in Charlottesville that left one person dead and several injured, drew a significant police presence along with counter-protesters. The CSA group, with some members displaying firearms, arrived in small numbers, and no injuries were reported. The results were similar after their second rally in December.
Monument Avenue, with its Confederate statuary, is a contentious issue that Richmond has struggled with over the years. Yet River City Roll co-owner Rob Long, who hired the artists, decided that referencing the debate with a painting on the side of his new business was a good idea.
“I wanted it to be broadly appealing, not to offend anyone,” he says, ”and I thought the kind of play off of the monument drama, if you will … putting a female bowler on one was pretty hilarious and actually pretty cool, also extremely Richmond given that we’re so close to Monument Avenue, it just made a lot of sense.”
Long was fine with the artists’ versions of the monuments on his building, but he doesn’t want to take a side in the discussions about the real statues on Monument Avenue. He seems genuinely surprised by a question about whether the monuments should be removed or remain and says he has “no opinion” on the matter.
“I didn’t want [the mural] to be a political statement by any means. I think it was [the artists'] way of expressing, you know, all of the discussions about it and do it in a way that appeals to everyone,” he says
Shawn Utsey, interim chair of African-American Studies at VCU, says after seeing photographs of the murals, he’s still trying to determine what they mean.
“Well, I was curious as to what they were trying to communicate. It was ambiguous, certainly tantalizing given the history of Richmond,” he says, adding that he believes the artists were trying to send a message. “What that message is, is anyone’s guess.”
Utsey says that placing bowlers atop the Monument Avenue pedestals might be interpreted as a knock against the Confederate cause.
“I imagine that people that support that cause would be offended by that,” he says, adding that the mural's ambiguity might cut both ways. “People on both sides might be struggling to make sense of what that mural means.”
While Utsey can't clearly discern the artists' intentions, he says they have provided an opportunity for discussion about how, when it comes to Monument Avenue, even ambiguous messages can be troubling.