Monument To The Unelected



Drive past the Lefferts Historic House in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and you’ll be confronted with a crowd of political signs resembling those typically displayed on street corners before every election. You might think they’re leftovers from the Clinton/Trump campaigns that somehow got dumped at one place, but if you read the signs, you’ll find names from yesteryear, such as John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Al Gore and Mitt Romney. The oddest part is that all these names belong to candidates who ran for President of the United States and lost. The series of signs is an installment art called “Monument to the Unelected” by artist Nina Katchadourian. The art piece was originally commissioned in 2008 by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art for their 10th anniversary exhibition entitled "Seriously Funny." Since then, the signs have been making brief appearances every four years for a few weeks leading up to every presidential election.