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in the california desert, artist will boone has hidden a subterranean artwork influenced by the death of john f kennedy and his personal connection to the tragedy as a texas native. taking the form of an underground survival shelter, ‘monument’ is boone’s vision of JFK held in the same kind of bunker that he would have used in case of nuclear attack. the installation has been realized as part of desert X, an outdoor showcase of site-specific works taking place across the coachella valley and its desert landscape.

visitors arriving at the entrance to ‘monument’ find an all-black, underground bunker hidden in the middle of the desert. a narrow ladder descends to a lower level, where a dark, vast room awaits. sitting in the center of this space is a painted bronze sculpture of john f kennedy, based on a figure from a hobby-kit and scaled up to larger-than-life sized proportions. boone intends for the installation to ‘speaks not just to all those things that have been driven underground since the extinguished optimism of the sixties but to those same fears — nuclear attack and the invasion of the other -– that have been so vividly resurrected in recent times.’