Walker Art Center director regrets not discussing 'difficult' new sculpture with American Indians [View all]

By ALICIA ELER , STAR TRIBUNE
May 27, 2017 - 2:44 PM


The Walker Art Center’s executive director expressed regret Friday to Minnesota’s American Indian communities over tensions raised by a new sculpture, “Scaffold,” a gallows-inspired work based in part on the hanging of 38 Dakota tribe members in Mankato in 1862.

It will debut at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden June 3.

“I should have engaged leaders in the Dakota and broader Native communities in advance of the work’s siting, and I apologize for any pain and disappointment that the sculpture might elicit,” Olga Viso wrote in an open letter to The Circle, a Twin Cities newspaper that serves the American Indian community.

Several protesters gathered Friday outside the garden, which is still under construction. Signs posted on the chain-link fence read: “Not Your Story” and “Hate Crime.”

“It’s five generations ago, and really we have to realize that 1862 was not that long ago,” said Sasha Houston Brown, who is Dakota. “I think it should publicly be taken down so we can see it come down. It’s really traumatizing for our people to look at that and have it just appear without any warning or idea that they were doing this. And it’s not art to us.”

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