Artists Critique America at 250: Monkman, Moreno, Dzama

In a Glasstire opinion piece, the author reflects on the U.S. semiquincentennial amid political turmoil, citing Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech. The author highlights three contemporary artists who critique American history and nationalism through their work. Kent Monkman's painting "Sunday in the Park" (2010) reimagines Albert Bierstadt's Yosemite landscapes and Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte," presenting Indigenous figures in a peaceful scene as an alternative to the violent removal of the Ahwahnechee. Francisco Moreno's installation "WCD Project" (2015) at Dallas Contemporary reworks Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" with dazzle camouflage on a movable wall and a 1975 Datsun, questioning why Washington is glorified while immigrant families are vilified. Marcel Dzama's exhibition "I Am the Sun, I Am the New Year" at OMR in Mexico City (February 2026) draws on Dada, featuring a brick wall with a hole revealing slain lovers, a toppled Statue of Liberty, and graffiti reading "Dada won't buy you a Bauhaus." The author argues that criticism is foundational to the U.S. and that artists continue this tradition.