{"id":271764,"date":"2025-06-04T02:13:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T02:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/alan-michelsons-answer-to-the-vanishing-indian-myth\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T02:13:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T02:13:01","slug":"alan-michelsons-answer-to-the-vanishing-indian-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=271764","title":{"rendered":"Alan Michelson\u2019s Answer to the \u201cVanishing Indian\u201d Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" data-src=\"https:\/\/share.transistor.fm\/e\/bb33063f?color=94C5E9&amp;background=196196\"><\/iframe><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/share.transistor.fm\/e\/bb33063f?color=94C5E9&amp;background=196196\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin\u2019s \u201cAppeal to the Great Spirit\u201d (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). He was riveted by the statue\u2019s grand horse and the powerful yet melancholy figure wearing a striking Plains Indian war bonnet. It was only in his 20s that the artist learned that he had been separated through adoption from his own Native heritage and Mohawk birth family in the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, Canada. He soon learned that the Dallin sculpture he marveled at in childhood symbolized the nefarious \u201cVanishing Indian\u201d myth, which cast Indigenous peoples as doomed to extinction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-1200x800.png?resize=1200%2C800&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=1200%2C800&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=720%2C480&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=768%2C512&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=2048%2C1366&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=1024%2C683&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=2000%2C1334&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=780%2C520&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=400%2C267&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-scaled.png?resize=706%2C471&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/MFA-Boston-1200x800.png?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Cyrus Edward Dallin, \u201cAppeal to the Great Spirit\u201d (1909) in front of Alan Michelson\u2019s \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d (2024) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (photo Hrag Vartanian\/<em>Hyperallergic<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last year, after four decades of reconnection with his Indigenous community, deep historical research, and the development of a highly acclaimed practice in video, installation, and public art, Michelson returned to the MFA to install his answer to the 1908 sculpture: two platinum-gilded bronze sculptures of living Native leaders who are Indigenous to the land now known as Boston. The gleaming forms of Aquinnah Wampanoag artist and activist Julia Marden and Nipmuc artist Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines Jr. stand proudly on the two large plinths on either side of the MFA\u2019s entrance, resolutely toppling the myth that Indigenous peoples have disappeared from this land and honoring the vitality of Native communities today.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98aa29&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1699\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on-async--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-id=\"1017806\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1-1200x1699.jpg?resize=1200%2C1699&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017806\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C1699&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=720%2C1019&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=768%2C1087&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=1085%2C1536&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1085w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=723%2C1024&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 723w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=780%2C1104&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=400%2C566&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?resize=706%2C999&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1.jpg?w=1413&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1413w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-1-1200x1699.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98ae50&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1695\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on-async--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-id=\"1017805\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2-1200x1695.jpg?resize=1200%2C1695&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017805\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=1200%2C1695&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=720%2C1017&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=768%2C1085&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=1087%2C1536&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1087w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=725%2C1024&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 725w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=780%2C1102&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=400%2C565&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?resize=706%2C997&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2.jpg?w=1416&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1416w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Knowledge-Keepers-2024-2-1200x1695.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption wp-element-caption\">Alan Michelson, \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d (2024) (images courtesy the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In this episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, Michelson joins Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian to discuss the process and inspiration behind this pair of works, titled \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d (2024). They also discuss the dinosaur tracks on Mt. Holyoke that inspired the artist as a child, the reasons George Washington is known as a \u201cTown Destroyer\u201d in many Native languages, and how Michelson sees the land as a silent witness to history. We also talk with Ian Alteveer, the chair of Contemporary Art at MFA Boston, who walks us through the fascinating process behind \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers,\u201d\u00a0 which is the inaugural installation in a series of monuments that will greet visitors at the museum\u2019s main entrance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98b357&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"676\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on-async--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" 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https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=2048%2C1154&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=2000%2C1127&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=780%2C440&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=400%2C225&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4.jpg?resize=706%2C398&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas4-1200x676.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98b734&quot;}\" 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720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=768%2C433&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=1536%2C866&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=2048%2C1154&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=2000%2C1127&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=780%2C440&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=400%2C225&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3.jpg?resize=706%2C398&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas3-1200x676.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98bb1b&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"676\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on-async--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-id=\"1017803\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas-1200x676.jpg?resize=1200%2C676&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017803\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=1200%2C676&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=720%2C406&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=768%2C433&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=1536%2C866&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=2048%2C1154&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=1024%2C577&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=2000%2C1127&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=780%2C440&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=400%2C225&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas.jpg?resize=706%2C398&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas-1200x676.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<figure data-wp-context=\"{&quot;imageId&quot;:&quot;683f97f98beef&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"694\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on-async--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on-async-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-id=\"1017807\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2-1200x694.jpg?resize=1200%2C694&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1017807\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=1200%2C694&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=720%2C416&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=768%2C444&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=1536%2C888&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=2048%2C1185&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=1024%2C592&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=2000%2C1157&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=780%2C451&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 780w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=400%2C231&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2.jpg?resize=706%2C408&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 706w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Hanodagayas2-1200x694.jpg?w=370&amp;quality=90&amp;ssl=1 370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-label=\"Enlarge\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.initTriggerButton\" data-wp-on-async--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-style--right=\"state.imageButtonRight\" data-wp-style--top=\"state.imageButtonTop\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"12\" height=\"12\" fill=\"none\" viewbox=\"0 0 12 12\">\n\t\t\t\t<path fill=\"#fff\" d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption wp-element-caption\">Four stills from Alan Michelson, \u201cHan\u00f6daga:yas (Town Destroyer)\u201d (2018) (images courtesy the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Subscribe to Hyperallergic on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hyperallergic\/id1112233641?mt=2\">Apple Podcasts<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/podcast.hyperallergic.com\/\">anywhere else<\/a> you listen to podcasts. Watch the complete video of the conversation with images of the artworks on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@hyperallergic\">YouTube<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>A full transcript of the interview can be found below. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I was exposed at an early age to dinosaur tracks. My mother enrolled me in my first drawing class when I was seven years old. And from the place where she dropped me off on the street, you walked up a driveway that was paved with some of the fossilized stones \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>No way. Wow.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>\u2014 with dinosaur tracks. So I would literally time travel. As soon as I got out of the car, I\u2019m like thousands of years in the past. And my imagination was just set off like a fire. And I was a curious guy. I went for it hook, line, and sinker. So I think that that\u2019s sort of the foundation of some of my time travel.<\/p>\n<p>I guess I think of the land as a sort of silent witness. And so then if I pull up some things, then maybe I\u2019m the mouthpiece or I\u2019m an advocate. Sometimes I feel like I\u2019m an advocate or a speaker for things that can\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>Hello, and welcome back to the Hyperallergic Podcast. You were just listening to the voice of artist, Alan Michelson, an artist and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, who\u2019s based here in New York City. As a child growing up in Boston, he\u2019d always been fascinated by Cyrus Dallin\u2019s \u201cAppeal to the Great Spirit,\u201d which is a sculpture of a Native warrior on a mighty horse that\u2019s been outside the museum since 1912. It\u2019s a beautifully done work, but illustrates a nefarious myth called \u201cThe Vanishing Race.\u201d The idea that indigenous people in America had completely lost the battle with their colonizers and would soon disappear. Many years later, with years of work as an acclaimed artist under his belt, Michelson was commissioned to sculpt his answer to that sculpture, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re here to talk about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d are a pair of sculptures unveiled in late 2024, modeled on two living community members who are indigenous to the Boston area. Over a century later, they gleam with a silver finish, a powerful response to the myth of \u201cThe Vanishing Race\u201d that undergirds the \u201cGreat Spirit\u201d sculpture nearby. In this episode, we\u2019re going to talk all about his story from reconnecting with his indigenous heritage after years of being separated from his birth family through adoption, his wide-ranging site-specific public art practice, what it means to be Indigenous from the northeastern United States, why George Washington and many other U.S. presidents are called \u201ctown destroyers\u201d in some Native languages, and the place he feels most at home; here in our beloved New York City.<\/p>\n<p>We also visited with curator Ian Alteveer at the MFA in Boston, who told us about the process behind the new addition to the museum\u2019s facade, which coincidentally is also part of the inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial that starts in May 2025 and continues until October. I\u2019m Hrag Vartanian, the Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of <em>Hyperallergic<\/em>. I think we have a lot to cover and to talk about. So let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>Welcome, everyone. Today, we have Alan Michelson. Hi, Alan. How\u2019s it going?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It\u2019s going well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>I\u2019m really excited to talk to you about your project that\u2019s currently up at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers.\u201d Congratulations, by the way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Oh, thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>We met each other about 10 years ago at the indigenous New York conference that you helped put together. And I still think about that conference because it was a really great opportunity to open the eyes of a lot of us to an Indigenous history here that has been hidden. And I bring that up particularly because so much of your work is about those layers of history that are often erased, that are often ignored, that might be repurposed in different ways and also just different perspectives. And that\u2019s one of the things I appreciate about it. And in this case in Boston, you\u2019re responding to a specific sculpture that you remember from your own youth as well as through the years?<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>My interest in history goes back to childhood. And when we moved to Boston, when I was nine, my stepsister took me on the Freedom Trail, which you\u2019re probably familiar with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s marked by a red line and it goes past these nationally significant historic sites. But what impressed me the most at that age was a very modest monument that wasn\u2019t even visible above street level. It was a circle of cobblestones, about a dozen feet in diameter, that was marking the site of the Boston Massacre from 1770, one of the catalysts of the American Revolution. And I remember standing on those cobblestones and just thinking, \u201cWow, people were killed here a couple hundred years ago.\u201d And it was electrifying somehow through the soles of my feet. And that ended up being a sort of basis in a way for a lot of the work that I do, which is site-specific and raising up histories that are not visible at surface level. So MFA Boston was one of those sites from my childhood. And the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was my first sort of encyclopedic museum as a child.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>We never forget those, do we?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah, we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-5    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>Ian Alteveer:<\/strong> Hi, I am Ian Alteveer. I am the Beal Family Chair of the MFA Boston\u2019s Department of Contemporary Art. When I arrived at the MFA Boston in the fall of 2023, one of the first activities and programming areas that I needed to tackle was what to do with these two plinths that were at our main entrance on either side of the stairs. They had been occupied for a number of years by two rather nondescript cast iron urns that were soon to be removed. And all thought that this would be an amazing opportunity to ask a living artist to contribute something special to our entrance. We conceived of the project as an annual \u2013\u2013 or biannual, or something in the middle there \u2013\u2013 opportunity for an artist to make a really big impact in a space that is our first point of entry for the public. A fantastic colleague, Marina Tyquiengco, our associate Curator of indigenous art in the Department of Art of the Americas, put Alan\u2019s name forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The team all thought that Alan would be an amazing choice for this first go round, for a variety of reasons. He spent time from about age eight to about age 18, riding the T back and forth every day on the way to school, looking at the museum, looking at the sculptures in front of the museum. And then he returned at some point to go to art school here as well. So that was important to us too, that there was some connection to the city. And also, of course, because of those connections, he had quite a sophisticated take, I think, on the sculpture that\u2019s there by Cyrus Dallin.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>My memories of that sculpture go back to nine years old. I\u2019ve seen it in all kinds of weather and all sorts of ages and all sorts of understandings of art. It\u2019s called \u201cAppeal to the Great Spirit.\u201d And it\u2019s a plains rider, nearly naked, but wearing a very stereotypical war bonnet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>But also generic moccasins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Generic moccasins. He\u2019s on a stilled horse. It\u2019s a very still sort of monument. And it\u2019s striking in its own way. I mean, Cyrus Dallin \u2013\u2013 like many of the sculptures of his generation, Augustus and Godens and a lot of those \u2013\u2013 they were skilled sculptors. And so the thing about the \u201cGreat Spirit\u201d is that it\u2019s not without appeal.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-6    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><strong>HV: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>So that sort of gives it a certain power. But I\u2019m not sure that that statement is really relevant today. It was taking a humanitarian stance, or I think he thought it was taking a humanitarian stance, at a time when Native people had been reduced and had been decimated. And it was implying that this could be the last of a people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I mean, he\u2019s playing with the Vanishing Indians trope, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Which was super, super prevalent then. And it was almost like it was an assumption that Native people were going to disappear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. And thank God it was proved wrong.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I know from being a Bostonian that Bostonians know how to read that sort of era sculpture. It\u2019s all around. It\u2019s all in the public parks. And I just thought that if I could do a different version of that, that would hold its own in terms of look and in terms of materials, \u2014 it\u2019s platinum-gilded bronze \u2014 that they would be able to be in better conversation with that and hopefully change the atmosphere in the front of the museum.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Do you remember the first time you saw the \u201cGreat Spirit?\u201d Did you feel like, \u201cHey, representation\u201d? Or was it, \u201cWhat is this?\u201d What was that kind of relationship?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>At nine, I was not that sophisticated, so I just was like, \u201cWow.\u201d I loved horses and that sort of romance, the American West, all that stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s how it functions, right? It does appeal to those different things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Exactly. It was the hit of the Paris salon in 1909 or something, which is why it ended up there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> The thing about that sculpture, too, is that it\u2019s reminiscent of other images of the \u201cVanishing Indian\u201d trope, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And it was actually the most optimistic one, in a weird way. I feel like most of them are really, really depressing. They\u2019re very defeated. Do you think there\u2019s something unique about that sculpture that also may have appealed to you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, I think it\u2019s the body language, if you could say that. The pose of the sculpture is less of that stereotype of the dying Indian, but I was thinking about it. There\u2019s something sort of Christian, it seems to also \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You\u2019re right!<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0 enter into it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s such a good point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It\u2019s like a crucifix. But in usual crucifix paintings, the head of Christ is always bowed down looking like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>There are a few that are like this [gestures with arms outward and head up]<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>And I was thinking that that might\u2019ve inspired him in some way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You know what that brings up for me too? That\u2019s also this image of like, \u201cLord, why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Do you know what I mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>That\u2019s what occurred to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, I just got a little chill\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That is kind of creepier than I thought.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Because there\u2019s kind of this\u2026ooh.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Well meant, probably.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I mean, I don\u2019t think it should be junked. I don\u2019t think it should be hidden. But I do think mine should stay there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. So let\u2019s talk about \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers.\u201d There are two sculptures of a local Nipmuc activist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines, and also Julia Martins. She\u2019s an artist and also a community leader.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. So both of these figures, one male, one female, are sort of at the entrance of the museum. And they\u2019re also made of bronze, and then they\u2019re covered with platinum.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>They\u2019re gilded, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Gilded with platinum, apologies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And they have this kind of really radiant energy at the entrance. Tell us a little bit about your thinking behind this and a little bit about how you saw them in relationship to the entrance, the sculpture to the public.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>My models are live, thank goodness. Very accomplished people. Very important to their communities. They are Knowledge Keepers, and so they already are radiant. So it was posed like how do I capture that? So part of it was pose. Like, I knew I wanted Julia to be holding up that eagle feather fan. I also had seen images and seen talks by Andre StrongBearHeart Gaines. And so I just thought that would really counter the sort of passivity or the supplication, the sort of pleading plaintive thing of the Plains figure. So part of it was just wanting that life to come through, and then the material. So what should it be? And radiant substances have a certain sort of metaphorical and metaphysical significance to Northeastern Woodland people. So that glow is something that\u2019s almost like medicine. Traditionally, it was from shells from wampum, but also there was Native copper in the Midwest that was traded. And then when silver came with the colonists, that became a big thing. So I was trying to riff on that and extend it. Turns out that silver leaf tarnishes almost immediately.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Anybody who has silver knows that that\u2019s a problem. [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes, yes. Well, outdoors, it\u2019s even worse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Even worse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>So we went with platinum, which is the most stable, the most durable of all those substances. That would be metals used for gilding. Not cheap.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You bet. You got it in before the tariffs though. [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. But it\u2019s also forward-facing. It has futuristic associations as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely. You definitely get that. There\u2019s this sci-fi kind of aspect. It\u2019s like space travel or something. Do you know? There\u2019s something very futuristic about those images. And then also I think with the \u201cGreat Spirit\u201d sculpture, it\u2019s sort of like it changes the sculpture because he\u2019s not alone anymore and he\u2019s flanked by these two figures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. In fact, if you stand at a certain spot and his upraised arms, it\u2019s almost like the figures are in his hands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, no, I got that immediately. And it\u2019s sort of like\u2026 I loved how it almost felt like this person wasn\u2019t alone anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Appeal answered.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> What do you think of the choice of making it silver? And I\u2019d love to hear your take on how you think it completes the work or maybe complements other parts of the museum.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IA:<\/strong> It\u2019s a great question. We went through a lot of possibilities with the finish for those particular sculptures. I think Alan is always really interested in color and in the materiality of things. It seems to play an important role, color especially, in a lot of past works. Color and reflection, I\u2019d say. Once a sculpture is cast in bronze, you can choose to use a patina. Or, you could paint them, which kind of tends to dull some of the sharp edges of a nice bronze cast. Or, you can gild them. And Alan had thought about a metallic finish. Bronze itself is metal, and he landed on platinum in a really interesting way. He was researching this a lot and read some studies from anthropologists and archeologists who said that platinum is really an indigenous metal. It\u2019s something that indigenous peoples in South America first discovered and used in all kinds of ways. What\u2019s also cool about platinum is that it is one of the most incorruptible metals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ian Alteveer: <\/strong>So it is really protective. And as a result of that, it\u2019s used for all kinds of applications and kind of space-age technologies, and it has this amazing, beautiful kind of otherworldly sheen. And so rather than being reflective, it is more shimmering. Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IA: <\/strong>And so they have this beautiful, almost lunar quality, especially at night. And that spectacular gleam also is a protective coating. So Alan is kind of protecting these amazing people. Folks who pass by the museum, who are used to seeing every day, maybe the same old sculpture out there are now seeing something different, something spectacular, something glowing from the inside almost. So that\u2019s also special too.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>HV, to AM:<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk a little bit about your own past. And I know your family\u2019s from Six Nations, a reservation in Southern Ontario. And as I told you, previous to our conversation, I\u2019ve been there. Because I grew up in Toronto, and so I remember going to the Six Nations, and it being the only reservation maybe that people in Ontario even knew, frankly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It was very popular. The powwows were very well attended, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes, yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And there was a presence in the community in a way that I think very few other Native communities, at least in Southern Ontario, had. How would you characterize it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I mean, there are few reservations or reserves east of the Mississippi. You know, Andrew Jackson took care of that. So it\u2019s only people like yourself who are, let\u2019s say, Torontonians, who are conversant with Six Nations and the powwows. There are some mini-reserves in New York, and the people around there are familiar, but most people just think Native people are only in the West.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It\u2019s also interesting because scratching the surface of the Northeast, there\u2019s always something Native. Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That contradiction is very prevalent here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Well, there\u2019s still lots of place names.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>So that\u2019s, I think, what most people are familiar with, and then they\u2019re familiar with the stereotypes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> So in terms of your own sort of past, do you want to tell us a little bit about growing up? Where did you grow up and what was your relationship with your own communities?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I have a bit of a complicated background. I was part of that probably 30% of my generation who were separated from their Native families through adoption. And so I grew up first in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and then our family moved to Boston. So I wasn\u2019t even aware of my Mohawk background until I was in my 20s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Wow. So tell us a little bit, if you don\u2019t mind sharing, what were the conditions for that adoption? We talk about family separations, but I guess people don\u2019t often understand what that actually meant for people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>There are all forms of Native removal, and I think that was trying to be the most benign. It was trying to answer a need. So in my case, it was a voluntary adoption. But then again, you could say that the position that colonialism had left my Native mother and family was not conducive to \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, no. I would argue that it definitely, like those conditions like poverty and other things, those are structural, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. But adoption is age-old.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It\u2019s not confined to this. But I think that probably like many adoptees, you want to know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>And you\u2019re not told. In fact, there are laws in Massachusetts protecting all that information. So I was fortunate, being able to do that and to reunite with my Native family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I think just so the audience thinks about it too. I mean, could Native families adopt white children?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, that\u2019s what I mean. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m saying, like, where the structural violence of the system is actually much more ingrained.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah, it was asymmetrical, for sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right, exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. Like everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It represents power relations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>And it was in many ways. I mean, I was raised in a great loving family and was really well-educated in public schools and so forth. And I\u2019ve tried to use that education to not only learn about my culture before I was even immersed in it \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You mentioned in your 20s is when you realized you had a Mohawk heritage. I mean, I would assume that there would be an amount of shock in that reality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It was mind-blowing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. Just think of it, to be part of a relatively small population and then wanting to understand it, embrace it, and live in it, which is what I\u2019ve been doing for 40 odd years.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> So when you first heard that, what impact did it have on you? Was it like, \u201cWhy was this hidden from me?\u201d Or was it more of a, \u201cWow, this has just changed the ground beneath my feet?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, I always felt connected to the land here, and that was one of the first things that hit me. I am connected in some very powerful way that was subliminal. So I can\u2019t say that was the biggest thing, but then it was all curiosity. Like, \u201cHow do I approach this?\u201d I needed to learn. And so I\u2019ve had some amazing teachers and mentors along the way. Members of my family from Six Nations, members of their larger social networks. Jimmy Durham was an important figure for me \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Edgar Heap of Birds. There were a lot of influences then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That generation, yeah. Did it change the way you saw certain objects? I wonder?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It changed the way I see the world. And in fact, I think in my work, formats are important to me. And one of the reasons I like panoramic format and use it is because there\u2019s not one vantage point. It invites multi-perspectives, and it invites dialogue in relation, because like some of the ones I\u2019ve made are pretty big.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Huge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>So you end up being in dialogue with it rather than just sort of like a small picture where you just sort of gulp it and move on. And that\u2019s one of the reasons I also like time-based art, is that things move. There\u2019s not a story, there\u2019s not a narrative, there\u2019s not a sequential narrative in my work. Time is quite embedded in it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I want to talk about the piece \u201cHe(a)rd.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Oh, sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I love that piece.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> So you did that in the UK, I believe. Correct?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. In 2005.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And what was the name of the space you did it in, if I remember?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It was Compton Verney.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Compton Verney. And what you did there was you had the sound of a stampede.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes, a bison stampede \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> A bison stampede that visitors to this beautiful room designed by this neoclassical architect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>John Adams, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> John Adams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You know, you hear this buffalo, this bison stampede through this sort of pristine white space, or at least they hear the sounds of it. How would you characterize the piece?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It\u2019s a beautiful space that John Adam designed. It\u2019s marble and it\u2019s very classical looking. And outside, I don\u2019t know if you saw many pictures of it, it\u2019s an invisible work in a way. It\u2019s sound work. There were just speakers on either end of this thing, but I had arranged the sound, so it sounded like they were in the distance and then coming as you get closer to the other speaker, and then vice versa. So it would just go back and forth all day.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>[Stampede sounds from Alan Michelson, \u201cHe(a)rd,\u201d (2005)]<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>There were these bucolic sleeping cows that were just outside.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Did they freak out?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>No, they just were grazing away. So that was a cool piece.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, so that adds another layer, almost like this domestication, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You know, like from the bison to these cows is kind of like\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. A European cow versus an American cow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. Yeah, I love that layer. That\u2019s so great. I\u2019ve noticed this one pattern in your work, like your sculpture in Richmond, Virginia, where there\u2019s a relationship to this \u201colder figure\u201d that may have been pivotal in the history of America, in the case of Virginia, where it\u2019s like a building designed by Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right? And in this case, about this room that\u2019s sort of designed or in the case in Boston where you\u2019re responding to this older sculptor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Tell me a little bit about that relationship. What is it that really excites you and what ignites your imagination there?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>It was prevalent this summer when I was able to show at the Thomas Cole House.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Another figure, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. You could say he\u2019s not only the father of the Hudson River School, but maybe of American painting in general.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Landscape painting, for sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>Yes. And so you\u2019re right. Maybe that model of not starting from scratch, but starting from some sort of conversation with something that\u2019s preexisting, and then working from the present and wanting to project something into the future. But I was exposed also at an early age to the dinosaur tracks \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, I love that story that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM: <\/strong>\u2013\u2013 in Holyoke. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Those are the first recorded, or at least that publicly known dinosaur tracks, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And that\u2019s in Holyoke, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That blew my mind, I didn\u2019t realize that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> A couple of miles from where we lived, and there was this sort of folk sculpture of a dinosaur that I just loved. That was the first sculpture I really loved.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. It was like a roadside attraction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, it was a roadside attraction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right, right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> But the tracks themselves were amazing. Kids love dinosaurs. My mother enrolled me in my first drawing class when I was seven years old. I was the youngest in the class. From the place where she dropped me off on the street, you walked up a driveway that was paved with some of the fossilized stones \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> No way. Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 with dinosaur tracks. So I would literally time travel. As soon as I got out of the car, I\u2019m like thousands of years in the past. And my imagination was just set off like a fire. And then the house itself was like this Addams Family spooky sort of mansion with old oriental rugs. It\u2019s sort of dark. It had things like arrowheads, then it had Hudson River paintings. It had a weird big music collection. It was a cabinet of curiosities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> [Laughs] Right, right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And I was a curious guy. I went for it hook, line, and sinker. So I think that that\u2019s sort of the foundation of some of my time travel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I mean, it makes sense because you do a lot of works where there\u2019s the impressions of objects, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Which reminds me of the way you\u2019re talking about the dinosaur tracks or the fossilized, where you\u2019ll embed them in these stones or the piece you did at Wave Hill where you do the different vegetables or casts that appeal almost like rosettes or flourishes and other things in the room.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> That\u2019s great. I never related those two. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I think it feels very connected.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it is very connected. So the idea of something being a tracker, a trace, that is standing for an absence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And with dinosaurs, it\u2019s very absent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> I mean, extinct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> But you can look at any site that way as there are traces, and some of them are no longer there. Some of it is just information that\u2026 So one can dig in a site without physically touching it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> That\u2019s part of my process. But I \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And time travel at a site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. And that\u2019s what I do, and \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I know that\u2019s exactly what you do. That\u2019s why I bring that up. I mean, the time traveling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s a habit, and it\u2019s one that serves me well in my work. Sometimes I get these feelings. Honestly, my first major public artwork was the Collect Pond piece, \u201cEarth\u2019s Eye,\u201d in 1990.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Talking about the hidden history of a site, we have here in New York, which is the Collect Pond, which used to be around where the tombs are.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, exactly. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right there. Which is \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> The Court District.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> For those of you who are not from New York, the tombs are where the courts and the prison are in Lower Manhattan. So that\u2019s a very symbolic site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Exactly. And you couldn\u2019t make this up because entombed underneath all that was a living pond, a spring-fed, major pond. Something that was probably half the size of Walden Pond and is deep and is pure. That was just in the way of all that mercantile, extractive activity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. And you also mentioned the fact how they sort of made it toxic. Right? It\u2019s not like it disappeared out of nowhere. They just literally made it toxic with all the stuff they\u2019d pour into it. The oils and whatever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> They poisoned their own water supply. It was insane.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. Which is so bizarre, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. It was insane. I mean, you think about who allowed that, what sort of governing body allowed that. But anyways, there\u2019s a karma to it because they thought they could maybe develop it as new land. And they had this scheme to do it, to make it a residential fancy place called Paradise Square, but they had neglected to remove the vegetation when they buried it, and all of it started to rot and stink and sink.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> So it became a stinking mess, as did the slow little stream that they turned into a canal; that\u2019s how they drained it to the Hudson. And then the canal became smelly and they buried it under Canal Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It became Canal Street. Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. But just the thought of this beautiful pond and wetlands that was supporting so much diverse life and was a Lenape site because there was a large midden on the Western shore where Tribeca is now. A huge midden, big enough so that the Dutch named it. They named that area Colchoke, which meant \u201cshell point\u201d or <strong>\u201c<\/strong>chalk point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Got it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And they were extracting those shells. I mean, in that case, they just bulldozed them in their 19th century way. That was part of the landfill. But I think of that, I think there\u2019s just all those oysters. That\u2019s a kind of archive down there too, of thousands of years of generations and generations of Indigenous people eating and dining on oysters and shellfish right there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. Yeah. And even thinking of the fingerprints they must have left. Think of the different worlds or the activities that happened around these things. And now of course, in New York, they\u2019re replanting oysters, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It\u2019s sort of ironic, right? Now it\u2019s like there\u2019s this big movement to bring in all these millions of oysters to clean the waters of New York and return them to a more natural state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, yes. Well, are you familiar with my midden piece?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yes. Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> So that was a partnership where I was lucky to collaborate with the Billion Oyster Project.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s right. That\u2019s the project. That was the MoMA PS1 piece. Correct?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s great. Yeah. I mean, one oyster can clean up to 50 gallons of polluted water.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Isn\u2019t that crazy?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s amazing. So using a nature-based solution, to me, is brilliant. It should be embraced.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, so upcoming for me is a project with more art.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Nice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> So I\u2019m sort of their commissioned artist for next year. And I\u2019m hoping to work again with the Billion Oyster Project. I have another oyster project in mind.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Love that.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> One of the things I like about casting is that it\u2019s like what you see is what you get. It\u2019s in many ways the most true form of representation that you can make of a three-dimensional object.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Sometimes I feel like I\u2019m an advocate or a speaker for things that can\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, that\u2019s powerful. That\u2019s powerful. And also, I think the casting also, coming back to the notion of time, freezes something in a moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Absolutely. I\u2019m a fan of this brilliant British psychoanalyst and author, Adam Phillips. And just in passing, at the end of one of these conversations, he just said something like, \u201cArt monumentalizes life, it stops time and invites space for reflection.\u201d Something like that. And I think that\u2019s exactly what it does.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Spot on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, I think that\u2019s really powerful. You also write, you make video\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. <\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> How would you connect these all together in terms of your general artistic practice? characterize thatfor people?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> I think that what you pulled out about casting, I\u2019m trying to, within this massive subjectivity that is art, have something that rings true, have something that\u2019s\u2026 There\u2019s a documentary aspect to my work, and yet there\u2019s enough that separates it from fact or the usual forms, typical forms of documentary. So I try to mix that with a lot of formal experimentation and experimentation with materials. In my video work, I\u2019m trying to give video some thickness because it\u2019s considered this two-dimensional thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, I would even say texture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> That\u2019s a better word, maybe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I feel like there\u2019s texture in the video pieces you create that both makes the image more powerful, but also sometimes obstructs it a little bit. Like, there\u2019s this kind of almost like a grain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> There\u2019s a contest actually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, I sort of set them into relation, and the relation sometimes ends up being a conversation, but one that maybe one can drown out the other sometimes in it. Like, with the midden piece, I projected extreme panoramic video, like 30 feet by six feet or something like that, onto three tons of shells that were laid out in a wedge-shaped thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And it was the waterfront, was it? Which waterfront was it? I\u2019m trying to remember.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It was formerly really good oyster grounds that was on the very polluted Newtown Creek.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That was at Newtown Creek. That was \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yes. Right up here actually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. And the Gowanus as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. So Superfund sites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Superfund sites that were once beautiful sites of oyster \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And those who may not know Superfund are super polluted sites the government designates for special funding for cleanup.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. So in the case of the midden, first of all, you could see it from three different levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. So this is in the MoMA PS1, that sort of like that hall kind of atrium space, the taller duplex space where there\u2019s often only one work, like a large installation work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> So from the main floor, you could look down at it and it flattened out because you\u2019re looking down. But then as you got to the basement and then sub-basement, and as you got really close to it, I noticed that the video seemed to harden, and the shell seemed to liquefy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Interesting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> You know what I mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s like the sort of flowing colors of the video on the shells made them less hard, but it hardened the video, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. I get that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. I used to paint actually that way, where I would cover my canvas with materials that I collected from the site. Could be twigs and little things and leaves and stuff. And I would then paint something that was figurative over that. And so there\u2019d be a little contest. I got that from Kiefer, just a contest between the material itself speaking and then the other. And so there\u2019s a way in which the video, even if it\u2019s not narrative, has a narrative quality to it. And there\u2019s a way in which shells or Turkey feathers are mute, but very expressive of nature. So it changes that there\u2019s something declarative maybe about the video and something that\u2019s just like a drone about the object that I\u2019m projecting onto. But then I got into things that are a little more complicated, like a human face, like George Washington\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Ah, let\u2019s talk about that one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> But first I just want to clarify for Anselm Kiefer, for those who may not know the German artist, because he works a lot with memory too, which really connects with yours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And I mean, the memory of genocide specifically, he often works with, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. He was an important artist for me when I was moving out of abstraction into figurative work. In fact, he was probably the impetus for it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> He\u2019s your bridge. I like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> He was. Yeah. Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I love that. So let\u2019s talk about this piece, because the George Washington bust, I think it\u2019s an incredible piece. You bring up the history that in the Mohawk Nation, he was called \u201ctown destroyer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Or is it a Haudenosaunee word? Remind me, please.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> He inherited a title from his grandfather who was the first upon whom the local Natives, I think they were Susquehannocks, that he murdered, so \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Down in Virginia?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. Or around that area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> There were wars in the late 17th century. I think that it probably translated slightly differently in all the different Nations\u2019 dialects and languages. Even at Six Nations, if you listen to my thing, you\u2019ll hear different pronunciations of it.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>[Music plays, various speakers recite \u201cHan\u00f6daga:yas\u201d in the audio of Alan Michelson\u2019s \u201cHan\u00f6daga:yas (Town Destroyer)\u201d (2018)]<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> That was the first time, really, that I\u2019ve used the figure in my work. A lot of my work is about what human beings have done. It sort of shows results, but it doesn\u2019t show the people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And traces.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes, traces. Exactly. But it\u2019s like the part standing for the whole. It\u2019s not typically figurative in that way. So that was the first time that I sort of got into that. But this idea of history as a projection, that also occurred to me. Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s a projection often of a fantasy, often of what I would distinguish between history and heritage. I think, okay, heritage maybe can be a neutral term. The way I\u2019m meaning it though, it\u2019s very inflected history. It\u2019s a very biased history. It\u2019s sanitized history. And so our image of George Washington, which is in our wallets, you know, everywhere \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. Everywhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 there\u2019s really such an icon to take the liberty of, \u201cGive me liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> That was a step for me. It\u2019s not unlike, in a way, dealing with the Dallin in front of the Museum of Fine Arts you saw.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. I see the connection directly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And the thing about that Washington piece is, again, this term, \u201ctown destroyer,\u201d it sort of changes our idea of who he was. And it reminds me of when I visited the Seneca Nation in Western New York. Like, when they talk about JFK, they have a whole different history from the understanding than mainstream America. They see him as negative, because he took their land, you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And it reminded me of that, where Washington then becomes this figure that has been transformed. Like, no matter what Houdon did, and tried to glamorize him into this almost ancient Roman-like figure, you\u2019ve sort of projected onto him this other history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> These maps, these different traces of violence that have brought up\u2026 Now, do you think that that piece\u2026how would you connect that to your interest in sculpture in space and time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> I think that in a way, the bust is a trace as well, because it\u2019s based on a cast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> But I wanted to just get into his title, \u201cTown Destroyer,\u201d a little bit, because every subsequent American president is known that way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, I see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> So all of them. So the name started there, but then it sort of\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. Yes, they inherited. So that was also prevalent. Even around New York, there was a Dutch governor named Corlear. Corlear\u2019s Hook was once a place on \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, of course.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. So all the subsequent governors we called Corlears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You\u2019re kidding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. So it stuck.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right. Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And in the American Revolution, the revolutionaries were known as the Bostonians.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Really?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. So there was a sort of consolidation of these sorts of things. And if you think about it \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> I love that because it also pokes into the mythology, right? It pokes it through it, and sort of gets to a different perspective, which is like your kind of work is on in general. Apologies, go ahead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. No, no, that\u2019s true. This idea of presidents as town destroyers, there have been few that haven\u2019t destroyed some towns, and that\u2019s been turned into sort of this glorious American history. But most of it is pretty bad actually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. And even when Natives fought the American Revolution, they didn\u2019t really get anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean, the Tuscarora and Oneidas, some of them sided with the Americans, and their land was \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Taken as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> \u2013\u2013 taken as well. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. I\u2019d love to talk a little bit about place and site, which seems to be very important to you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> What is it about that? Is it a positionality? I mean, I know we\u2019ve talked about landscape as being an important part of that, but what is it about place that maybe roots you in something or\u2026 What is it about that idea for you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> I guess I think of the land as a sort of silent witness. And so then if I pull up some things, then maybe I\u2019m the mouthpiece, or I\u2019m the advocate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Totally. And silent witness, there\u2019s a big tradition in America, especially of trees being silent witnesses of different kinds of silent witnessing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And one of the things, I think about landscape, I\u2019d love to hear your sort of thoughts about it, but I feel like it also ties into this false idea of the landscape being pristine before Europeans arrived, right? As opposed to Natives who were actually crafting the landscape. And the landscape itself has its own sort of history and power in narrative quality that we often don\u2019t want to see. And I\u2019m curious, does that resonate for you? How do you approach the landscape in different ways?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Again, I get feelings about landscapes, and I think that because indigenous culture is relational with the Native place names, they\u2019re descriptive. But there\u2019s some sort of love that I read in those descriptions. This is the place where the two waters meet, or there\u2019s like a mini poem in these. And so there\u2019s a reverence there and there\u2019s a knowledge there, like \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d. And so I try to be in dialogue with spaces like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. Now we\u2019ve been having this great conversation. Is there anything that we haven\u2019t talked about? And specifically about the Boston work that you\u2019d want to address, is there something about that? Maybe even talk a little bit about how your relationship to a museum like the MFA has changed over the decades.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, of course, the first time there was interest on their part was in the Hannah Deguia\u2019s photo series that I did. And so they acquired that a few years ago. Fortunately, they have an Indigenous curator there, Marina Tyquiengco. And that\u2019s happening more and more at major art institutions. So it\u2019s nice when museums are opening themselves up to work like mine. And like you say, it\u2019s being integrated now. It\u2019s not like this, \u201cOh, this is here. This is exotic\u201d \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> This is \u201cNative room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s not like that. But there are still many group shows that are being made where Native artists are not thought of, but it\u2019s changing. It\u2019s starting to change. And that\u2019s really good. I hope that the non-Native curators will continue to learn about our cultures and our artists, because I think that it\u2019s important for curators to be responding to work very honestly and applying the same sorts of critical faculties that they would apply to any work. And I don\u2019t always see that with some of the selections. They seem lazy and not in depth enough. There\u2019s better work by some of these artists or by different artists that they\u2019re not even thinking of.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> The last thing I want to ask you about is Robert Smithson, because you have an interesting relationship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Bob?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, I\u2019m drawn to the land, and of course I was drawn to artists who are also drawn to the land, but there\u2019s something \u2026 it shows hubris.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yes. What? You don\u2019t think you can just change the landscape whenever you want? [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Well, exactly. Okay, so that\u2019s it. So the sense of entitlement that created the United States seems to have empowered these artists who usually aren\u2019t associated with empire or stuff like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah. That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> But in a way, they disregarded it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Well, I mean, isn\u2019t that the ultimate privilege? To be able to ignore it? [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. Yes. I mean, in a way it\u2019s extractive, but\u2026 I know he\u2019s an intriguing artist for me because he was sort of Icarus. He died in the plane that was looking at one of his aerial views, trying to research a site. So there\u2019s something sort of legendary about him, and also something disturbing\u2026 Like this brilliant guy from this little tract house in New Jersey trying to find his way. And in a way, I do love some of his work. I love Spiral Jetty. It\u2019s complicated \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It is. Well, that\u2019s what I like. I think that\u2019s the sculpture in Boston where you can acknowledge the problem there, but you also want to be in conversation with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right? It doesn\u2019t feel like a lecture. And I think that\u2019s why your work works so well. It\u2019s like there\u2019s a conversational quality that brings the viewer in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. I believe strongly, and I should tell my students, there has to be some attractor, there has to be some sort of magnet for people to give your work the time of day. Because visual art is the most democratic of arts, I think, because you can get a lot from looking at something in a very short time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> So it\u2019s very economical in a way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And cross-cultural and all those things that language is not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. And it has this very compact power that can then have large reverberations. And unlike performance-oriented, even musical or theater or performance art, you\u2019re not stuck.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> If it\u2019s not to your taste, you\u2019re not stuck. I love that about a sculpture, something that\u2019s just mute, it\u2019s on the wall or whatever. It\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, okay.\u201d Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Totally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> But it\u2019s like \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And you can consume so much of it in a way you can\u2019t with books.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You can\u2019t with \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> You just take it all in and sift it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s promiscuous, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It really is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Like, you watch your museum, and it\u2019s like \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Totally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> \u201cWow. I\u2019m just too much.\u201d I was just recently in Rome, and it definitely had that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s like drinking it in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It\u2019s like that level, like a fire hose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> It\u2019s like drinking from a fire hose a little bit, where it\u2019s all these levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. You get that rapture sort of at a certain point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s amazing. And it\u2019s intense, and I think that intensity is part of what draws people to art, and it\u2019s often lodged in the artists.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Absolutely. I love that. So my final question is going to be, what is the question you hope people think about when they see your work? Is there a question that you would like them to think about? And obviously there are probably many questions, but I\u2019m just wondering if you could isolate one question that you think really sort of gets at some of the ideas you talk about, and perhaps people sometimes don\u2019t see or discuss as much as they should.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> How much is it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> [Laughs] That\u2019s funny, Alan. I like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> No, no, I \u2013\u2013<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> [Laughs] Will it fit all my credit card?<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been asked that, by the way. [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Really? [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s clearly a fantasy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Next time I see you, I\u2019m going to be like, how much is that, Ala? [Laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> These things come via email. You just open up one day and it\u2019s like, \u201cAlan, is this available?\u201d And you start to levitate in the chair.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly. Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, so let\u2019s see. A question that I would want people to ask\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Yeah, maybe a conceptual question? Or perhaps, something like, \u201cWhat is my relationship to this object?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, I intend my work to be relational. It\u2019s a set of propositions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And so I want people to, if they become engaged with it, to just go with whatever they want to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah. That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Love that. Well, thank you, Alan. It\u2019s been a pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> It\u2019s been a pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And hopefully people will see \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers,\u201d which will also be part of the Boston Art Triennial.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Right. Which opens on May 22nd to the public. And I believe that \u201cThe Knowledge Keepers\u201d is going to be up for longer than a year. I just heard that that might happen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Whoo-hoo! I hope they acquire it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yeah, it was mid-November and now it\u2019s going to be, I think, more than next November.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> And yes, it would be great if they did and write cards and letters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Right, exactly. Everybody send their energy into the universe. But also just being part of the Boston Art Triennial sounds really exciting too, because it\u2019s going to bring a lot of new eyeballs and context for the work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. And some really good contemporary Native artists, Nicholas Galanin and the New Red Order.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. Amazing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Yes. So it\u2019ll be great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> That\u2019s great. So congratulations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> And hopefully people will spend their time with it and explore all your work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AM:<\/strong> Ah, thanks.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>HV:<\/strong> Thanks so much for listening. This episode was edited and produced by Isabella Segalovich. And like all episodes of the Hyperallergic Podcast, it\u2019s supported by <em>Hyperallergic<\/em> members. So if you want to join thousands of other people to support the best independent arts journalism out there, telling stories no one else is telling, please consider becoming a member for only $8 a month or $80 a year, because <em>Hyperallergic<\/em> needs your support to ensure that we can continue to bring the stories you want to hear. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. My name is Hrag Vartanian, Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder of <em>Hyperallergic<\/em>. See you next time.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>[Audio from Alan Michelson, \u201cRoundDance\u201d (2013)]<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<section id=\"block-27\" class=\"below-content widget widget_block\"\/>\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin\u2019s \u201cAppeal to the Great Spirit\u201d (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). He was riveted by the statue\u2019s grand horse and the powerful yet melancholy figure wearing a striking Plains Indian war bonnet. It was only in his 20s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[4894,4970,1897,97487,18562,28727],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-271764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-alan","tag-answer","tag-indian","tag-michelsons","tag-myth","tag-vanishing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alan Michelson\u2019s Answer to the \u201cVanishing Indian\u201d Myth - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The artist discusses his gleaming installation outside MFA Boston, his journey to reconnect with his Mohawk roots, and how he responded to the racist trope.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=271764\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alan Michelson\u2019s Answer to the \u201cVanishing Indian\u201d Myth - 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