Monuments

“Everywhere you go, you see a monument to various people… I thought maybe we should have some monuments to somebody who was not so famous, just ordinary monuments.” -Robert S. Neuman

When Nueman wasn’t preoccupied with painting the cosmos or sketching lofty allegories about our shared quest for salvation, he painted monuments. Just maybe not the kind you’d expect. Neuman’s monuments were inspired by the cairns, or trail markers, that he saw while hiking in Acadia National Park. These are towering structures; frenzied cacophonies of shapes and lines, often appearing on the verge of collapse. Look closely and you’ll notice the outlines of cans and other household items amongst a veritable avalanche of abstracted shapes.