The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will dismantle "Scaffold," a sculpture "partly inspired by the gallows where 38 Dakota Indians were hanged in Mankato in 1862."

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

"I regret the pain that this artwork has brought to the Dakota community and others," [said Walker Executive Director Olga Viso]. "This is the first step in a long process of healing." She said that [L.A.-based artist Sam Durant] told her he was open to seeing his work dismantled because "it's just wood and metal — nothing compared to the lives and histories of the Dakota people."...

For the second day in a row, protesters gathered Saturday afternoon outside the fenced outdoor exhibit, holding signs with messages such as "Not your story" and "Hate crime." Earlier in the day, messages that had been placed on the fence Friday were removed, exacerbating tensions....

Rory Wakemup, a Minneapolis gallery director who specializes in contemporary native art, initially thought "Scaffold" was a ruse. He was shocked to hear that community leaders had not been consulted about it.

"Anything this heavy needs to have approval from a wide range of the community. There's no singular voice that can just do this," he said. "It's opened a wound and sets [Indian relations] back years."

We're told that the artist, Durant, "intended to raise awareness about capital punishment and address America's violent past." That's a comfortably safe political position for an artist in present-day America. Art should challenge us, and this artist chose to challenge the people who support the death penalty and the people who don't think enough about the violence done to Native Americans. But a work of art, left standing in public, cannot fine-tune its message. It can't say think only of it in these terms and not other terms.

Durant and the art museum obviously didn't intend to inflict pain on the Dakota people. Apparently, they assumed the Dakota would feel good about the amplification of their story in the public space, but they assumed wrong.

What an embarrassing show of elitist obliviousness! They assumed their well-meaning presentation of a painful story — a blunt replica of the gallows — would work as they intended, to inflict pain on the the right people, the sort of white people who voted for Trump, who'd think it makes sense to say Make America Great Again, when all the good people know America was not great.

And they didn't think about the possible impact on the very people whose story they wanted to beat the ignorant folk over the head with.

Why didn't they think to ask?! Wakemup — great name — got it right. You should have consulted with some people in the Dakota community. Show some respect for the people you want to show yourself off respecting.

I found this story because the commenter dustbunny brought it up in the comments here. She said: "Looks like censorship to me." It's not censorship in my book. The museum and the artist spoke first. Some people spoke second in response, and the response made the museum and the artist decide to change what they would say going forward. It's just like a conversation whether X makes a remark, Y says that's a terrible thing to say, and X then says, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I call that persuasion.

You know, public sculptures are big intrusions on a city. They just sit there. It's a lot worse than a book that was published and now sits where you don't have to read it. These sculptures are big, and they are in our space. A great deal of thought should be given to what belongs as a permanent fixture in our shared public places. A 2-story gallows is an awfully bad idea.

What were the mental processes of the elite arts people who decided this was a good idea? Now, they have to backtrack, because their mistake was so bad and they want to salvage their reputation. They're dismantling the thing they should never have put up. That's not censorship. That's belated shame.