Please Attend Ceremonial Deconstruction of “Scaffold” at the Walker Sculpture Garden, Friday at 2 p.m.

A news conference at the Walker Art Center announcing the removal of the sculpture “Scaffold” was well attended by local media.

The controversial outdoor sculpture “Scaffold” will start being disassembled on Friday, according to a joint statement by Dakota elders, representatives of the Walker Art Center and the artist who created the work. It was part of a  mediation agreement, announced today.

The sculpture was to be part of the upcoming Grand Reopening of the Sculpture Garden, but it was quickly engulfed in controversy. The artwork depicts several historic gallows, most prominently the gallows used to hang 38 Dakota men in Mankato in 1862. Neither the artist nor the Walker thought to ask Dakota people for their reaction.  When the sculpture started going up, that reaction came fast and strong.

Please join the ceremonial start of the deconstruction, Friday at 2 p.m. at the Sculpture Garden. It is a large sculpture and it will take four days to remove it completely. The wood will be taken to the Fort Snelling area where there will be a ceremonial burning. That date is yet to be announced.

The Fort Snelling area has great significance to the Dakota people, with both positive and negative reasons. Fort Snelling sits at Bdote, the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, the area central to the Dakota origin story. It also is the site where Dakota women, children and elders were held during the winter of 1862-63 following the Dakota-U.S. War. Hundreds died there.

The artist, Sam Durant, has turned over all intellectual property rights to the sculpture to the Dakota people, and promised never to replicate it.

This is a first in a series of blogs on today’s news conference. For the full statement that came out of mediation, keep reading.

“Scaffold” Sculptor Seems to Contradict Himself

“Scaffold” sculpture at the Walker Sculpture Garden.

Artists and writers who make political statements run the risk of having their past works and words come back to bite them. Such seems to be the case for Sam Durant, the artist behind the controversial sculpture “Scaffold,” which is going to be removed from the Walker Sculpture Garden.

The sculpture is supposed to be a commentary on capital punishment. The main feature is a replica of the gallows used to hang 38 Dakota men in 1862, the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. Even as it was being installed, the sculpture created pain and anger in the Dakota community. The Dakota community was not consulted in this project, one that evokes a major traumatic event for their people.

A Facebook post by my friend Genjo pointed out that a landscape art sign Durant created in 2003 appears to contradict his 2012 work “Scaffold.” The piece (an electric sign with plastic text) was sold from a private collection at a Sotheby’s auction for $10,625. The sign has black letters on a red background. [Update: The sign quotes Black Panther Emory Douglas.] It reads:

LANDSCAPE ART
IS GOOD ONLY
WHEN IT SHOWS
THE OPPRESSOR
HANGING FROM
A TREE BY HIS
MOTHERF***ING
NECK

Durant’s “Scaffold” recalls seven significant hangings, including the 1862 Dakota hanging, the 1859 hanging of abolitionist John Brown, and the last legally conducted public execution in U.S. history (Billy Bailey, 1996). If Durant truly believed what he created in 2003, would he have created “Scaffold,” which is all about hanging but does not include an oppressor? Or has his thinking evolved? Genjo wrote: ” I am genuinely fascinated by the relationship of this poster to ‘Scaffold.'”

Walt Whitman once famously wrote: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Artists are free to change their minds or simply contradict themselves. But when controversies like this arise, their works are going to get extra scrutiny.

“Scaffold” Sculptor Apologizes to Dakota People

The “Scaffold” sculpture viewed from behind the Spoon and Cherry.

Sam Durant, the artist who made the controversial “Scaffold” sculpture, has issued an apology to the Dakota people.

The Walker Art Center bought the sculpture from Durant to include in its revamped Sculpture Garden, due to reopen in June. The artwork was a commentary on capital punishment, its defining feature a replica of the gallows that hung 38 Dakota men in Mankato in 1862 following the Dakota-U.S. War. The Walker did not include Dakota people at all in this process. When it started to be installed, it triggered shock and protest from Dakota people and their allies. The sculpture is going to be removed.

The story has made national headlines. The L.A. Times posted a story Saturday headlined: Sculpture of a gallows by L.A. artist in Minneapolis may be removed after Native American outcry.

Durant is coming to the Twin Cities to be part of discussions between the Walker Art Center and Dakota elders. His apology reads in part:

Scaffold opens the difficult histories of the racial dimension of the criminal justice system in the United States, ranging from lynchings to mass incarceration to capital punishment. In bringing these troubled and complex histories of national importance to the fore, it was my intention not to cause pain or suffering, but to speak against the continued marginalization of these stories and peoples, and to build awareness around their significance. …

I made Scaffold as a learning space for people like me, white people who have not suffered the effects of a white supremacist society and who may not consciously know that it exists. It has been my belief that white artists need to address issues of white supremacy and its institutional manifestations. Whites created the concept of race and have used it to maintain dominance for centuries, whites must be involved in its dismantling. However, your protests have shown me that I made a grave miscalculation in how my work can be received by those in a particular community. In focusing on my position as a white artist making work for that audience I failed to understand what the inclusion of the Dakota 38 in the sculpture could mean for Dakota people. I offer my deepest apologies for my thoughtlessness. I should have reached out to the Dakota community the moment I knew that the sculpture would be exhibited at the Walker Art Center in proximity to Mankato.

Walker Delays Sculpture Garden Reopening, Leaving Space for Mediation with Dakota Elders

This statement from Olga Viso, Walker Art Center Executive Director, and Jayne Miller, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Superintendent was released this afternoon:

Out of respect for the process of mediation and resolution that is yet to unfold, the Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board announce today the official re-opening for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden will be postponed until Saturday, June 10, 2017. Both partners agree that this is the most appropriate course of action to honor the dialogue that is underway between Dakota Elders, the Walker, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, and artist Sam Durant regarding the sculpture Scaffold in the Garden.

A private mediation with a group of Dakota Elders is planned for the morning of Wednesday, May 31, 2017, with leaders from the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, City of Minneapolis, and the artist and his representatives. In advance of this mediation, Dakota Elders will be meeting with a broader cross-section of the Dakota community on Tuesday evening. This meeting is being organized by Dakota Elders and will inform the mediation process.  …

Dakota Elders leading the mediation process have respectfully asked that others who feel allied in this endeavor, but who are not Dakota, or whom may represent other communities across the state and region, to please be patient and respect the process that is currently underway. There is concern from all parties involved in the mediation process that pre-emptive actions in advance of these discussions would be counterproductive.

A public statement at 2 pm on Wednesday, May 31, will provide an update on the status of the mediation.

Walker Art Center Will Remove Scaffold Sculpture, Dialogue with Dakota Elders to Proceed

This statement just in from Olga Viso, Executive Director of the Walker Art Center

Scaffold sculpture will be removed from new Sculpture Garden.

Because we are keenly aware of how important the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is to the community, city and state, we have been taking the public response over the last 24 hours very seriously.

The responses have overwhelmingly conveyed and expressed anger and sadness that Scaffold has caused the Dakota community and beyond.

As the Executive Director of the Walker, I regret the pain that this artwork has brought to the Dakota community and others.

Prompted by the outpouring of community feedback, the artist Sam Durant is open to many outcomes including the removal of the sculpture.  He has told me, “It’s just wood and metal – nothing compared to the lives and histories of the Dakota people.”

I am in agreement with the artist that the best way to move forward is to have Scaffold dismantled in some manner and to listen and learn from the Elders.  The details of how and when will be determined by Traditional Spiritual Dakota Elders at a meeting scheduled with the Walker and the artist on Wednesday, May 31 with the support of a mediator selected by the Elders.  This is the first step in a long process of healing.

We will continue listening and communicating to the public as plans develop in partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.

Dakota Elders to Walker Art Center: Tear Down That Scaffold

Scaffold sculpture at the Sculpture Garden.

Dakota elders are asking the Walker Art Center to remove the new “Scaffold” sculpture from its soon-to-be reopened sculpture garden, according to an email from Graci Horne, who is both Dakota and Hunkpapa Lakota.

This is a sculpture seen from two vastly different world views.

To Horne and other Dakota, this is about cultural appropriation. The artist, Sam Durant, is white. This is about a white artist making money off of a story that is not his to tell. This is about the Dakota people having been left out of the conversation altogether.

To Olga Viso, the Walker Art Center’s Executive Director, the sculpture is a broader commentary on capital punishment. “I see it as a white artist who is looking at white power structures and systems of control that have subjugated nations and peoples throughout our history,” she said in a phone interview with Healing Minnesota Stories.

Sketch of the gallows from the mass hanging of Dakota men in Mankato in 1862 (Wikimedia Commons)

The sculpture is as big as a two story house. It depicts gallows from seven different hangings, most prominently the mass hanging of 38 Dakota men following the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862. Other gallows include the replicas from the hangings of John Brown, Saddam Hussein and the 1926 hanging of Rainey Bethea, a 26-year-old black man hung in 1926 in Owensboro, Kentucky, the last U.S. public hanging. The gallows from the mass hanging of the Dakota 38 is the most visible part. It is the sculpture’s exterior into which the other gallows are nested.

Viso has published an apology for not including Dakota people in this process. She has promised to meet with members of the Dakota community. That process is still unfolding.

In the meantime, protests at the Sculpture Garden are just getting started.