If the modern political lies are so big that they require a complete rearrangement of the whole factual texture… what prevents these new stories, images, and non-facts from becoming an adequate substitute for reality and factuality?
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– Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics, 1967

On Saturday, September 22, at 11 AM LigoranoReese installed a 2,000 pound sculpture of the word Truth carved in ice and let it melt away.

After launching Truth Be Told on the anniversary of the Trump administration this past January in New York, the artists knew the next step had to be to take it to Washington. They spent over 2 months in discussions with the National Park Service about where to do that. After two site visits and several meetings, LigoranoReese found the perfect location – on the National Mall with the U.S. Capitol behind it.

In front of their sculpture, the artists invited prominent D.C. writers and poets to join them, posting their commentary and texts live onto this website and related social media. The artists streamed Truth Be Told to a network of museums and galleries across the country, joining For Freedoms 50 States Initiative for the feed. Viewers could visit the sculpture on the ground in Washington or view the performance virtually on multiple websites around the world.

The installation lasted 8  hours and was the centerpiece for 2 days of activities.

Friday, September 21, at 6:30 PM poets and writers read works of their own and others at Busboys and Poets in response to current events.

Truth Be Told concluded Sunday, September 23 with a public discussion on transparency in the media at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University in collaboration with PEN America and Defending Rights and Dissent. To reserve a place sign up here.

LigoranoReese have been committed to installing these temporary monuments for more than one decade. Truth be Told is an ephemeral work, both celebratory and elegiac, like poetry in motion the sculpture combines message and medium with a sense of transience, engaging passersby in a way that static sculptures often cannot.

This type of interaction continually inspires the artists to keep making works that combine meaning, grace, fragility and beauty.