There is hopefulness in this confrontation. From this obscurity, Prince’s models hold court spontaneously, both beautiful and playful but never captive: the freedom to play with beauty marks our new monumentality.

That which we commit to memory in the form of community identities ought not be and cannot be subject to rules, as if beauty and freedom are a game. If beauty is exclusive then freedom is occulted by limits and obstacles to the spontaneity essential to beauty and play. Prince’s models hold us captive in the absence of the previous limits and captivated with what was before outside those bounds of beauty, now tumbling like old statues in public squares.