For the Counterpublic Triennial in 2019, Joseph del Pesco and artist Jon Rubin collaborated on a new commission, Monuments, Ruins and Forgetting, installed in an empty storefront on Cherokee Street in St. Louis, Missouri. The hand-painted signage was installated in three month-long stages, and was accompanied by letterpress posters appearing in the neighborhood. Monuments, Ruins and Forgetting inaugurated a new (and speculative) "National Museum" that—over the course of three months—presented a micro-narrative about historical progression.
"Del Pesco and Rubin considered, how does a nation, a city or a neighborhood decides what to collectively remember? Which histories are deemed worth saving and which are ignored, denied or forgotten? How long does it take for monuments to become ruins, or for once widely known stories to be forgotten?"
