Nicholas Galanin, I think it goes like this (memory and interference)

We're here in the gallery standing in front of Nicholas Galanin's, I think it goes like this, Memory and Interference, a monumental bronze sculpture. The sculpture is so much fun visually, but also dealing with such complex and serious issues. I find it incredibly compelling. The artist lives in southwest Alaska in Sitka. And for sale in historical indigenous lands across Alaska, there is a tourist trade. And these curio shops sell cheap replicas of indigenous works, made not by indigenous people, but by the cheapest labor perhaps that one can find. In this case, objects that are produced in Indonesia from Indonesian forests that are then imported into Alaska and sold to tourists. The series, I think it goes like this, delves deep into Galanin's exploration of totemic carving. And these pieces are what's left of a cutting and splitting where Galanin processes Indonesian fate. Totem poles. So you'll see almost firewood-sized pieces of these structures cut and chopped and sort of reassembled into sculptural form. Here, I think it's important to acknowledge that this is also representative of what it takes to rebuild what remains after colonialism with the reconstruction of these fakes. And so I think in one hand, there's a sort of addressing of these complex histories of extraction, of mining, of capitalism and the weight that that brings to different communities, addressing those histories, confronting them, but also reimagining them and reclaiming visual history in this very aesthetic way. I think that word reclaiming is really important here. That tawdry tourist industry, which is... built on a lack of knowledge and a lack of respect. And here we have an artist who is successfully working within a 21st century cultural moment, acknowledging the power of consumerism and its collision with a kind of historical knowledge that is sacred and is at the heart of his people's sense of self. The sculpture also then is asserting his ability to reclaim this work, to reclaim this cultural heritage, even as it has been abused in the 20th and 21st centuries. It's wonderful to see artists working at this large scale and bringing together different threads between art histories. The work here at Crystal Bridges is a wonderful testament to the artist's process. Galanin worked with a bronze studio to cast the pieces that we see in the sculpture, which is a sort of step forward or an evolution of his art practice. People in the Northwest Coast have a long tradition of working in copper. And bronze, which is an alloy, is made mostly of copper. But bronze is so much associated with the Western art tradition, going back to classical work by ancient Romans and ancient Greeks. And so to create a monumental sculpture in bronze is to reference that historical tradition and even producing a figure that is... Not totemic, but almost a figure standing in contrapposto, another touchpoint in the traditional Western canon. And so it's so interesting that this artist moves so freely through issues of colonialism, issues of his historical heritage, but also issues of a more global Western perspective, all melded together with a kind of beauty. Challenging monuments and challenging who decides what a monument is is something that the artist has taken charge of throughout different bodies of works over the years. In Alaska, Sealaska Heritage Institute collaborated with the Mellon Foundation to create a new totem pole trail along the waterfront in Juneau. And what was so wonderful about that collaboration is Sealaska Heritage Institute and individual artists, including Galanin, who received commissions to create these forms, were really empowered to shift the narrative on what is a monument in this country and who decides.