unmonumentATL: Nathan Sharratt

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For our unmonumentATL series, we asked 13 artists to share their personal un-monuments with our readers. From January 13 to 29, we will present one artist’s submission per day. And don’t miss Nick Kahler‘s incisive two-part essay on the subject. UnmonumentATL was conceived by former BURNAWAY editor Rachel Reese.  

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Atlanta Contemporary Art Center 
Atlanta, Georgia
Outside the courtyard gate to my studio at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is a concrete sidewalk slab that goes nowhere. You just stand on it while you’re plugging in your gate code. It’s a stand walk, I suppose. I’m pretty sure it was cast in 2009. I know this because someone carved their initials and the date into the a lower corner, presumably when the concrete was still wet: “SKW09.” The zero caught my eye, because the author drew the glyph as a square with a diagonal slash. It’s the same symbol I use as a signature to mark my artwork as a signature: a square with a diagonal slash (a visual pun created by overlapping my initials, N and S). Whenever I see it as I’m standing there, entering my code, I think about how I didn’t make that concrete slab, how I didn’t sign it, and how I didn’t do an infinite number of things on this space. I did not solve all the world’s problems. I did not fulfill some lifelong goal. I did not meet my true love. I did not eat breakfast. I did not finish this sentence.

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