Art exhibit at St. Olaf College is devoted to people who failed to become president

At first glance, a motley collection of dozens of signs crowded onto a patch of lawn on the St. Olaf College campus in Northfield looks like what happens when candidates don’t take down their campaign yard signs after the voting is all over.

But a closer examination reveals signs promoting candidates running in elections held decades, even centuries ago. All ran for the U.S. presidency. And all lost.

The curious sight is actually a pop-up art installation called “Monument to the Unelected,” hosted by the college’s Flaten Art Museum.

St. Olaf became one of seven sites across the country this year to host the exhibit created by Nina Katchadourian, a contemporary artist based in New York and Berlin.

“Monument to the Unelected,” first created in 2008, consists of newly made yard signs bearing the names of every major-party candidate who ever ran for president and lost.

It’s been exhibited every presidential election cycle since 2008, with a new sign added every four years.

At first, it seems like a gallery of losers, an exhibit of failure.

Some signs feature names of people who are now obscure footnotes in history after going down in defeat. Who remembers DeWitt Clinton, who lost to James Madison in 1812? Or Rufus King, beaten by James Monroe in 1816?

And some doleful strivers have the bitter fate of having more than one sign in the exhibit, like Adlai Stevenson, who lost twice in a row to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, or William Jennings Bryan, the losing candidate in 1896, 1900 and 1908.

But then you come across a sign for Theodore Roosevelt, defeated by Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Roosevelt, however, previously had won the presidency and was considered successful enough to rate being carved into Mount Rushmore. Not exactly a loser.

There’s also a sign exhorting viewers to “Vote Tom Jefferson: America needs a change.” Before winning the presidential elections of 1800 and 1804 — and getting his own spot on Mount Rushmore — Thomas Jefferson lost to John Adams in 1796.

The exhibit illustrates how several other presidential candidates initially failed before ultimately getting the prize, like John Quincy Adams, who lost in 1820 before winning in 1824. Or Andrew Jackson, beaten in 1824, victorious in 1828 and 1832. Or Richard Nixon, the loser in 1960, the winner in 1968 and 1972.

There are also signs representing presidents rejected by voters who decided they didn’t deserve a second term, including Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

But even the most successful candidate for president in history, Franklin Roosevelt, winner of four presidential elections, shows up in this exhibit of defeat.

His name appears on a sign representing the 1920 election, when he was the vice presidential candidate running with unsuccessful presidential candidate James Cox.

St. Olaf hosted “Monument to the Unelected” in conjunction with its Practicing Democracy exhibit at the Flaten Art Museum celebrating the college’s 150 years of civic engagement, which includes winning awards for having the highest student voter participation rate among U.S. colleges.

The exhibit was put up at the end of October without any announcement, in an effort to produce what the artist has described as “productive confusion.”

Some students who came across the exhibit initially thought the signs were for local candidates until they started seeing names they recognized from history, like Aaron Burr and John McCain, said Jane Becker Nelson, director and curator of the Flaten Art Museum.

“That’s key to the piece, that moment where you’re not sure what you’re seeing, and it makes you stop and question and rethink,” Nelson said.

Katchadourian, the artist, has described the exhibit as presenting a view of “our collective path not taken,” leading viewers to wonder how history would have been different if Aaron Burr had beaten Thomas Jefferson in 1800 or if Walter Mondale had defeated Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The exhibit is designed to be nonpartisan, since winners and losers can be found in all major political parties. There’s a Trump sign in the exhibit, representing the once and future president’s loss in 2020. And recently, first-year student and first-time voter Sydney Frisch added a new sign to the exhibit to represent this year’s loser, Kamala Harris.

The “Monument to the Unelected” is located outside the east doors of the college’s Center for Art and Dance and will be on view through Nov. 24.