On Thursday, August 15, Solange Knowles sat in one of the subterranean offices at the Guggenheim Museum discussing a new aspect of her everyday life: steady structure. “I’m able to go into my design studio at the same time every day, which is something as a touring artist I never had—a 9-to-5 schedule,” she said. The musician, artist, and creative director’s newfound routine, she says, stems in part from an unexpected source—the tchotchkes she owns, personal items that decorate her home in New York. We’re talking trinkets of all kinds: a clay cross she purchased at a gift shop in New Mexico, her record collection, stacks and stacks of books.
“I started touring at 13, a very young age,” she told W. “It created a nomadic spirit in me that carried on into adulthood. I move around a lot—I’ve lived in seven different cities in the last 15 or so years. But the objects that I possess are a way of grounding me in new spaces.”
Knowles wore a Proenza Schouler dress and shoes and Sophie Buhai earrings for the evening.
Photograph by Rafael Rios
Knowles channels that reverence for ephemera in the new short film, Monuments Are Here, which premiered at the Guggenheim that evening. The three-minute short was created and written by Knowles, directed by Nuotama Bodomo, and brought to life via Saint Heron—Knowles’s creative collective—as part of the artist’s partnership with Crown Royal. It stars the legendary musician Grady “Shady” Thomas, member of Parliament and Funkadelic with George Clinton, who shares his own treasure trove of memorabilia, objets d’art, and souvenirs—think African folk art, angel statues, football helmets, and his watch collection (including a timepiece with a diagram of the human body).
Solange Knowles with director Nuotama Bodomo, with whom she collaborated on Monuments Are Here.
Photograph by Rafael Rios
But the main piece involved in Monuments Are Here is the purple velvet bag in which bottles of Crown Royal are sold. Knowles, who describes the bag as “an iconic Black domestic object, and the motif of elders,” chose Thomas as her star based on his association with the color purple. “I’d written the script and story for this, and I was looking for the perfect subject,” she said. “I came across Grady and these old videos of him on Soul Train, and the spirit he evoked immediately touched me. Then I found out he’s pretty much worn purple exclusively for his entire life. He carries around a purple Sharpie with him, too.”
Grady “Shady” Thomas at the screening.
Photograph by Rafael Rios
Thomas is pictured in the film sifting through his myriad objects, pulling chess pieces and music boxes (including one that plays “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley) out of a Crown Royal bag. “I felt immediately connected to his storytelling about his collections,” Knowles added, “The things that he holds close, how they express all of these different versions and parts of him. There are a lot of facets of me that come out through dance, music, filmmaking, sculpture or set design. My practice has evolved in the last few years into ways to tell stories about these ‘tangible moments,’ so to speak.”
The focal point of the short is, without a doubt, Thomas—but the Crown Royal purple bag takes center stage as well since Knowles wanted to “tell its story.” (The musician notes that she personally doesn’t keep a Crown Royal bag at home, “but I have friends who use it in so many different ways. One of them is to hold guitar picks.”) The liquor brand hosted Knowles’s screening, which featured Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz’s daughter, Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, as emcee; along with a series of short films that followed the debut of Monuments Are Here. All of them captured “the art of collecting.” There was an excerpt of Missy Elliott’s MTV Cribs episode, plus a short on Theaster Gates’s collection of vintage Ebony magazines.
Monuments Are Here began with a question, white text typed onto the black screen: what do our objects say about who we are in silence? For Knowles, that clay cross is a very important belonging, one that she carries with her everywhere she goes. “I bought it at the end of a tour of the church in New Mexico,” she said. “There was something pulling me to this cross. Energetically, I felt like if I had this in my life and I could access this on a daily basis, it would make me a better human.
“I think about when I’m not here,” Knowles added. “These immortal objects will get passed on to our loved ones, through generations.”
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