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As Americans debate downplaying historical racism and genocide in classroom lessons, a strikingly decorated structure in Europe takes the opposite intellectual approach with U.S. history.

Works by New York Indigenous painter Jeffrey Gibson both fill and cover the U.S. Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale as part of the space in which to place me .



A mural incorporates “we are made by history,” one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s less-famed quotes, from a 1954 speech. A heavily decorated punching bag is emblazoned with a line from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.

” Ornate dresses bear dates that can be viewed as signs of progress or the preceding lack of it: “1924 Indian Citizenship Act” (which gave Indigenous people the right to vote nearly 150 years after the United States’ founding). “1866 Civil Rights Act” (declared all people born on U.S.

soil citizens, 90 years after the nation’s founding). “The Reconstruction Acts (of) 1865 1868 1870” (required Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed civil rights for all). Biennale brings huge exposure for both the New York-based Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians who is of Cherokee descent, and artists at SITE Santa Fe charged with executing his vision.

Gibson, 52, is the first solo Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. SITE announced last July that Louis Grachos, Phillips Executive Director of SITE, is one o.

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