Projects

Writing

Essay“The Precarious Deaths of Monuments”, The Los Angeles Review of Books, April 2026. 

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Yet art’s power lies precisely in its capacity for dissent, to question and refuse official narratives and symbols. Monuments, whether we agree with them or not, seek to efficiently express the values of the state. Art is meant to stir critical thought; it offers the viewer independence through an encounter. Art, in other words, is always subject to and meant for interpretation. Meanwhile, one of the main functions of a monument is to be toppled: it is an expression of both state power and its limit. 

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Catalogue Essay     Notes on American Ruin, Catalogue Essay for the  Exhibition, BURN ME!, The BOX LA, May 15, 2025 - July 5, 2025. Published March 2026. 

 

Has the American utopian project changed to incorporate violence more boldly since the Vietnam War? I recall lynching photography, and in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, when photography created widespread images of the ruins of the South. The South and North utilized these images and sites of destruction for their own purposes, as evidence of glory and victimhood. We’re still contending with these stories today. Maybe this was the American origin of the utilization of a breakdown for the purpose of power. Vietnam marked widespread change in the collective consciousness and in aesthetics as the first televised slaughter. Its fractured narratives also inspired a counterculture, a revolutionary awareness. Our political experience became about media saturation and an inability to connect with a grand story of inherent American righteousness. But despite its broadcast brutality, the Vietnam War went on to be framed and memorialized as a mistake, as something more passive, an unfortunate and unavoidable accident. Like a fire.

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Essay        A meditation on The Buddhas of Bamiyan published in Saul Ostrow’s LEF(t). 
Guest Editor William Corwin. 

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Manifesto 
2023 A Call to Rot: A Manifesto for Toppling Monuments, for letting go. 
LAAB Magazine 

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Essay 
2023  Tower Desire 
PreCog Magazine 

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Book Excerpt 
2023  Sculpture Kills 
Ursula Magazine, Hauser & Wirth 

      

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Chapbook
No Horses Were Harmed in the Making of this Work. 
Belladonna Press, Lesbian All Stars Series 

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Info

Contact:

jillianmcmanemin@pm.me
@jillianmcmanemin Jillian McManemin is a writer, archivist, and artist. She's a contributing editor at BOMB Magazine, and writes essays and reviews for publications like the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Texte zur Kunst, and Ursula. Her writing moves between art criticism and memoir, examining how sculpture, monuments, and political violence intersect with personal and collective memory. She was shortlisted for the Creative Capital Award in Literature (2025) and Multimedia (2022), and read her work at the 2022 Whitney Biennial.

In 2020, she founded the Toppled Monuments Archive, an international digital archive documenting monument removals and defacements. She organized weekly town halls from 2020 to 2022, served as host organization for NYU's Latinx Project Public Humanities Fellowship, and facilitated youth workshops at October Gallery, London. The archive now holds over 200 entries from more than 40 contributors, and has been recognized by Hyperallergic, ART PAPERS, and Monument Lab.

Her performance and video work has screened and been staged internationally, including at MET Live Arts, Anthology Film Archives, and the Istanbul Experimental Film Festival.

Her professional experience spans archival and editorial work across artists' estates, studios, and independent presses, including the Estate of David Smith, Judith Bernstein Studio, Dorothea Rockburne Studio, and Denise Green Studio, as well as a collaboration with Google Arts and Culture and The Feminist Institute to digitize Judith Bernstein's archives. Her editorial work includes David Smith's Catalogue Raisonné, publications for The Drawing Center, Hauser & Wirth, Storm King Art Center, and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and books and special projects with independent presses. 

Jillian is available for manuscript consultations, copywriting, editing, and archival work, and has worked with artists, studios, brands, and writers on projects ranging from exhibition catalogues to brand campaigns.

She is represented by Ed Maxwell at the Transatlantic Agency.

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Publications

“The Precarious Deaths of Monuments”, Los Angeles Review of Books, April 2026. “Notes on American Ruin”, Catalogue Essay for the  Exhibition, BURN ME!, The BOX LA, May 15, 2025 - July 5, 2025. Published March 2026.  "Smithson and Sculpture Kills." ART & POWER [Substack], November 10, 2025. "An America." ART & POWER [Substack], October 16, 2025. "North of Malibu." ART & POWER [Substack], October 1, 2025. "Goodbye to All That." ART & POWER [Substack], July 15, 2025. "Tower/Desire." Pre-Cog Magazine, Spring 2024. "Luciana Pinchiero." Praxis Gallery, January 2024. "A Call to Rot." LAAB Magazine, November 2023. "Sculpture Kills" [Excerpt]. Ursula Magazine, October 2023. "Politics and Painting the Aging Body." RYAN LEE Gallery, September 2023. No Horses Were Harmed in the Making of this Work. Chapbook. Belladonna Collaborative, Summer 2023. "In Defiance of Death as Finitude: Jillian McManemin on Exposé.es at Palais de Tokyo, Paris." Texte zur Kunst, May 2023. "Felix Beaudry: The Glob Mother." SITUATIONS Gallery, January 2023. "Vadis Turner's Encounters." ART PAPERS, November 26, 2022. "Pamela Sneed: ABOUT time." The Brooklyn Rail, July–August 2022. "Representing Lesbian Subjectivities with the artist Patricia Cronin." ART PAPERS, April 13, 2022. "Itziar Barrio: Stella!––working on, and through You Weren't Familiar but You Weren't Afraid." ART PAPERS, April 13, 2022. "Itziar Barrio, The Perils of Obedience." The Brooklyn Rail, April 2022. "The Medieval Body Balances the Heavenly and Corporeal." Hyperallergic, March 9, 2022. "Reclining through Disaster: Letters to the Drowned World." The Broadcast, January 13, 2022. "Archiving Toward Liberation: The Toppled Monuments Archive Collective." The National Monument Audit, Monument Lab, September 29, 2021. "Toppled Monuments Archive: Basic Principles." Tripwire Journal, Issue #18: Archive Fervor, 2021. "Monumental Collapse: Toppled Statues and Re-imagining Archives: Che Gossett and Jillian McManemin in Conversation." ART PAPERS, Fall/Winter 2020. "As if Art Suspends the World: I'm in Love with Pippa Bacca." BOMB Magazine, October 23, 2020. "Joy Girls." Field of Vision, September 30, 2020. "Let's Preserve Acts of History, Not Racist Monuments." Hyperallergic, September 21, 2020. "Sculpture Kills." Ugly Duckling Presse, Emergency Index Vol. 9, 2020. "Remembering Rebeccah Blum." Art Agenda, E-Flux, July 30, 2020. "Judith Bernstein's Archives." The Brooklyn Rail, March 8, 2019. "The Red Shoes." Metrograph Editions, September 2019. "The Political Resonance of Contemporary Sculpture." Hyperallergic, April 14, 2018. "Judith Bernstein Shines a Blacklight on Trump's Crimes." Hyperallergic, February 17, 2018. "Highway Girl." Your Impossible Voice, May 2018. "You're Kitsch but You're Beautiful." ART511, January 3, 2018.

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Talks 
"Painting the Aging Body." Panel with Clarity Haynes. Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, NY, September 14, 2023.

"Counter-Memories: Dismantling the Legacies of Repression in Latin America." Columbia University, October 11–12, 2023.

"Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s." Christian Liclair & Jillian McManemin in Conversation. Bureau of General Services: Queer Division, February 24, 2023.

"The Glob Mother." Felix Beaudry & Jillian McManemin in Conversation. SITUATIONS Gallery, January 29, 2023.

Visiting Critic. Pratt Institute, Spring 2022.

"Toppled Monuments Archive." Cambridge College, February 2022.

"Toppled Monuments Archive: Bearing Witness Panel." International Sculpture Center, November 2021.

Visiting Artist. The Pacific Northwest College of Art, October 2021.

Visiting Artist. Lewis & Clark College, October 2021.

Visiting Artist. The New School, September 2021.

"Thinking through Monuments: Five Episode Video Essay." University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 2021.

Visiting Critic. Pratt Institute, Fall 2019.

"The Red Shoes with Jillian McManemin." Metrograph, September 2019.

Visiting Critic. Pratt Institute, Spring 2019.

Visiting Critic. Pratt Institute, Fall 2018.

Visiting Critic. Pratt Institute, Spring 2018.

"Performance Art Panel and Reading." The Lower East Side Girls Club, April 2017.

Visiting Artist. Minerva Art Academy, Groningen, The Netherlands, May 2014.

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Performances, Readings,
Screenings & Exhibitions
Material Editions Reading. The Fable, Los Angeles, June 22, 2025.

"New Monuments: Iconoclasm, Reenactments, and Alternative Commemorations in the United States since 2000." 2-day symposium sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art. INHA: Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris, March 15–16, 2024.

Segue Reading Series. Artist's Space, New York, NY, December 9, 2023.

"Hardcore Jollies: A Reading on the Occasion of Gaby Collins-Fernandez's Exhibition." Anonymous Gallery, December 17, 2022.

Confederitis. Cinema House, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022.

Whitney Biennial: A Gathering of the Tribes Marathon Read. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 2022.

Portland's Monuments & Memorials Project. Converge 45, Portland, OR, 2021.

Thinking through Monuments. University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 2021.

Confederitis. Bureau of General Services: Queer Division, New York, NY, 2020.

Confederitis. Istanbul Experimental Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019.

Confederitis. Circe Theater, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2019.

Confederitis. Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, 2019.

Confederitis. Homenaje con Libre Acesso, Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño, Cuba, 2019.

Confederitis. Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY, 2018.

Confederitis. Homenaje con Libre Acesso, Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño, Cuba, 2018.

Confederitis. The Slipper Room, New York, NY, 2018.

The Theater of Resistance. The MET Live Arts, The MET Breuer, New York, NY, 2017.

The Theater of Resistance. arteBA Fundación, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2017.

Dear Performance. The Java Project, Brooklyn, NY, 2016.

Dear Performance. The Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York, NY, 2016.

The Cruel Tale of the Medicine Man. Queens World Film Festival, Queens, NY, 2016.

Orifice Descending. Performance with Clifford Owens. Invisible Exports, New York, NY, 2015.

Deep Play Fun House. Seed Space, Nashville, TN, 2015.

Hot Piss, Hot Coco. BLOOMSDAY. The Knockdown Center, Queens, NY, 2015.

Prelude to a film. Bureau of General Services: Queer Division, New York, NY, 2015.

Feedback. Curated by Clifford Owens. Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY, 2015.

The Cruel Tale of the Medicine Man. Coney Island Film Festival (Winner Best Feature), 2015.

The Orificial Cup, The Reflecting Pool. The CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY, 2014.

Succumbing to Storm. Jack Geary Contemporary, New York, NY, 2013.

Dear Johnny. The Kingston Art Festival, Kingston, NY, 2013.

Dear Johnny. Dixon Place, New York, NY, 2013.

Love Letters. Bureau of General Services: Queer Division, New York, NY, 2013.

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Awards, Grants, & Residencies Creative Capital Award Shortlist, Literature. 2025.

Mount Lebanon Shaker Museum Residency, 2023.

Shandaken: Governors Island Residency, 2023.

Public Humanities Fellowship, The Latinx Project at NYU, 2022.

Creative Capital Award Shortlist, Multimedia. 2022.

Public Humanities Fellowship, The Latinx Project at NYU, 2021.

Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grant, 2019.

The Andy Warhol Foundation & AICA-USA Art Writing Fellowship, 2018.

Can Serrat Writing Residency, 2018.

Vermont Studio Center Residency, 2016.

Artist Alliance Grant for Painters and Sculptors, 2016.

American PEN Writer's Fund, 2016.
Max's Kansas City Grant, 2016.

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Press
Public Art Dialogue (Taylor & Francis), "Jillian McManemin: Toppled Monuments Archive, The Collective and Sculpture Kills," 2023

VoyageDenver, "Meet Jillian McManemin," 2023.01.31.

Louisiana Illuminator, "As Confederate Statues Disappear, Will Monuments to People of Color Replace Them?" by Frederick Gooding Jr., 2022.02.15.

Mother Jones, "Nearly 100 Confederate Monuments Were Toppled Last Year. What Happened to Them?" by Melissa Lyttle, 2021.10.22.

Smithsonian Magazine, "Scholars Spent a Year Scrutinizing America's Monuments. Here's What They Learned," by Nora McGreevy, 2021.10.01.

Bloomberg City Lab, "What Counting Every Monument in The U.S. Adds Up To," by Kriston Capps, 2021.10.01.

Bloomberg City Lab, "Trump's 2020 Statue Order Paves the Way for Domestic Surveillance Under Biden," by Kriston Capps 2021.08.26.

The Film Comment Podcast, "Sex Work in Cinema," 2021.08.

Philips, "Whose Histories Should Be Commemorated?" by Re'al Christian 2021.06.24.

Accomplice Magazine, "Notre Dame University, Colonial Hangups: Racist Art On College Campuses," by Liam Maher February/March 2021.

El Salto, "Tras caíe mesas de Black Lives Matter, ¿qué monumentos queremos para el futuro?," by Virginia Lazzaro, 2021.02.04.

Hyperallergic, "Trump's Hypocritical Silence on the Defacement of Monuments During Capitol Attack," by Valentina Di Liscia, 2021.01.07.

Periódismo Alternativo, "Retirar monumentos y abrir el espacio público," by Miguel Anxo Rodríguez, 2020.11.21.

Hyperallergic, "Have an Informed Opinion About Art? We Want to Hear It," by Seth Rodney, 2020.10.28.

The Brooklyn Rail, "Open Letter: On Philip Guston Now," 2020.09.30.

ArtForum, "Tobias Madison Pleads Guilty in Domestic Violence Case,"2020.01.23.

The Guardian, "Abortion Is Normal: the emergency exhibition about reproductive rights," by Laura Feinstein, 2020.01.13.

ARTnews, "Domestic Violence Accusations Against Artist Stir Group to Send 'Letter of Concern' to Swiss Institute," 2019.10

Artforum, "Cultural Figures Call for Swiss Institute to Address Assault Allegations Against Tobias Madison," 2019.10

Swissinfo, "Swiss Museum Accused of Assault: Swiss Museum-goers Against Artist Stir Group to Send 'Letter of Concern' to Swiss Institute," by Maximiliano Morales, 2019.11.08.

Sunday Evening Video, "The Cruel Tale of the Medicine Man by Rudy Panucci," 2016.12.04.

Broadway World, "The Cruel Tale of The Medicine Man Film to Debut This Friday," 2016.10.10.

The Blood Lust, "Cinemafantastique," 2016.08.26.

The New York Times, "The Coney Island Film Festival Medicine Man Film to Debut This Friday," 2015.09.16.

Art21, "Three-dimensional Allegory: Lucia Love's Reflecting Pool," by Louis Doulas, 2015.01.19.

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Last Updated: September 9, 2027

© Jillian McManemin 2027