Men and Monuments
Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
3 – 18 March 2020 and 6 – 30 April 2021

For the past 16 years, in an ongoing project titled The Lost Men, Emmanuel has challenged conventions around war memorials. He has questioned which soldiers are memorialised and which erased, and the stereotypes around soldiers and masculinity. In contrast to accepted practices where war memorials are erected using robust, permanent and immovable materials such as granite, he commemorates the forgotten using his own transient and vulnerable body to transform himself into a living, but temporary war memorial. Artworks from all three iterations of The Lost Men are featured in Men and Monuments. A monograph titled Paul Emmanuel, edited by Professor Karen von Veh and with writings by Professor emerita Annette Becker, Professor Karen von Veh and Associate Professor emerita Pamela Allara, was published by the museum.