MOBILE STRUCTURE; RELIEF & Memorial: (Monument Prototype for a Mass)

Kahlil Robert Irving presented his first public sculpture – a new ‘prototype for a monument’ on a vacant lot at Texas and Cherokee Street. For MOBILE STRUCTURE; RELIEF & Memorial: (Monument Prototype for a Mass), Irving created a large sculptural intervention that is both a model and a memorial. The sculpture serves as a simulacra to reference elements of both city and landscape, utilizing subtle glitches to abstract and unsettle the images in ways that reveal the underlying violence inherent to the present day United States. The work references how such violence is not always in view, but supports the structures that prop it up. Irving’s work often emerges from direct interaction with the streets of St. Louis, monumentalizing the material culture of the city in homage to his friends, family, ancestors, and those who have died or were murdered. It is a relic of our present time, and a draft towards a future.