Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation
Oct 25, 2019–Jan 12, 2020
Alan Michelson, still from Wolf Nation, 2018. High-definition video, color, sound; 9:59 min. Soundtrack by Laura Ortman. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Director's Discretionary Fund 2019.327. © Alan Michelson, sound Laura Ortman. Image courtesy the artist
Alan Michelson (b. 1953) has critically and poetically foregrounded Indigenous models of political, social, and environmental relationships for more than thirty years. A New York-based Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River, Michelson draws upon historical memory and Indigenous philosophy to reveal and challenge disturbing colonial legacies. His methodically researched, site-based multimedia works uncover suppressed histories to envision more equitable relationships.
This exhibition, centered around Wolf Nation (2018), presents four works in video, sound, print, and augmented reality that investigate the layered histories of place through forms distilled from diverse sources such as wampum belts, moving panoramas, Indigenous horticulture, colonial maps, state historic markers, and scenic wallpaper. Each moving-image work is horizontal or circular in form, echoing Indigenous concepts of time and space: multi-perspectival and cyclical rather than singular and linear. By creating works that affirm Indigenous relationality and also survivance—a state of active presence and resistance—Michelson allows us to see the potent, parallel worldviews of Native cultures.
This exhibition includes two augmented reality works—one on Floor 5 and the other in the lobby.
Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, with Clémence White, senior curatorial assistant.
Support for Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation is provided by The Rosenkranz Foundation.
Wolf Nation
1
In Wolf Nation, Alan Michelson transforms webcam footage of red wolves, a critically endangered indigenous species, into a meditation on displacement, the environment, and survival. The video links the eradication of the wolves from their extensive historic range with the colonial dispossession and removal of the Munsees, the Wolf Clan of the Lenape people, from their homelands, which included large portions of present-day New York and New Jersey. The video’s color and wide format refer to the Native tradition of wampum belts—woven sashes of purple and white beads carrying solemn messages used in diplomacy. Michelson’s projection assumes the form of a wampum belt for the digital age, with moving pixels standing in for beads. As a Turtle Clan member of the Mohawk Nation, Michelson affirms Indigenous environmental practice and its philosophy of kinship with the natural world.
The soundtrack is composed by White Mountain Apache composer and musician Laura Ortman.
Wolf Nation, 2018
Alan Michelson, still from Wolf Nation, 2018. High-definition video, color, sound; 9:59 min. Soundtrack by Laura Ortman. Whitney Museum of American Art; purchase, with funds from the Director’s Discretionary Fund 2019.327
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Member Preview Days for Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation
Repeats
Next: Wednesday, October 23, 2019
12–6 pm -
Opening Reception for Fall Exhibitions: Preview Night
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
7:30–10 pm -
Opening Reception for Fall Exhibitions
Thursday, October 24, 2019
8–10 pm -
Contemporary Indigenous Art in a Global Context: Alan Michelson in Conversation with Wanda Nanibush and Richard Bell
Saturday, October 26, 2019
4 pm
Essay
Perspectives
Installation Photography
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Installation view of Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 25, 2019–January 12, 2020)
Explore works from this exhibition
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In the News
"[A]ugmented reality’s ability to show two realities at once can be a powerful storytelling approach, as demonstrated by the New York-based artist Alan Michelson’s show “Wolf Nation”" —The New York Times
"Through multi-sensorial installations, Alan Michelson holds genocidal colonizers accountable and affirms the continued survival of Indigenous people." —Hyperallergic
"Michelson’s new pieces are AR works at their best—they reveal the unpleasant realities of our own world that are often kept out of sight from many people." —ARTnews
"Alan Michelson’s multimedia works tinker at the reuleaux triangle where technology, tradition, and memory meet." —Bomb
“The planet is experiencing biological death on an accelerating scale, and Alan Michelson knows the power and magic that the threat of annihilation breeds.” —The Observer
"Wolf Nation is both an evocative affirmation of solidarity across species and a stark appeal to the forces responsible for their persecution." —Artdaily.org
"Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation is a compact yet impactful exhibition that encapsulates Alan Michelson’s (Mohawk) experimental, artistic practice." —First American Art Magazine