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Snap Inc. teamed up with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on new project Monumental Perspectives.
The multiyear program will bring Los Angeles-based artists and Snapchat Lens Creators together to create augmented reality monuments and murals celebrating diverse histories and perspectives from communities across the city and examining key moments and figures from the past and present that have been overlooked.
They will come to life via the Snapchat application in locations such as the museum’s Wilshire Boulevard campus and Magic Johnson Park.
The first five artists to participate will be I.R. Bach, Mercedes Dorame, Glenn Kaino, Ruben Ochoa and Ada Pinkston. Details about each of their projects will be revealed in early 2020, and more artists and projects will be added at a later date.
Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke curator and department head of contemporary art at LACMA, said in a statement, “The five participating artists are interested in the important questions surrounding public commemorative art: whose experiences and perspectives are being foregrounded? Whose histories are being erased? We are looking forward to experiencing their vision and sharing these works with the public.”
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest funder of the arts and humanities in the U.S., recently kicked off The Monuments Project, a five-year, $250 million commitment to transform the way public spaces are used to tell the history of our country.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement, “We are thrilled to join with LACMA and Snap in supporting this exhilarating new initiative, and we look forward to the fresh, far-sighted work that Monumental Perspectives will spark. These visionary artists will chart bold new ways of experiencing and understanding the complex history of our country’s monuments and memorials and encourage broad public engagement and enthusiasm for the future of our commemorative spaces.”
Snap co-founder and chief technology officer Bobby Murphy added, “LACMA shares our belief that AR can be an immersive and impactful storytelling medium, as well as a vehicle for advocacy and representation. We’re thrilled to support the creative vision of local artists and Lens Creators as they bring untold stories of diverse communities across Los Angeles to a new dimension.”
And LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg director Michael Govan said, “LACMA has partnered with Snap before, but this is a truly ambitious initiative to pair artists with innovative Lens Creators to rethink how to mark L.A. with diverse histories through digital public artworks. Building new physical monuments takes a great deal of time, but the issues around monuments in America are urgent. Utilizing Snap’s advanced AR technology, artists and their virtual artworks mapped to specific places can inspire immediate conversations around real histories, real places and visions of the future.”
