‘ It causes injury and is bigoted,’ reviewers say
The University of Alberta’s 73-year-old painting, which depicts scenes of aboriginal and European settlement history in the area, has been accused of causing “harm” and may need to be covered up or taken down by the institution as it ages and requires renovation.
A group of African Americans dressed in togas and praying around a priest holding up a bridge and a symbol is depicted in the” Alberta History” painting.
Another landscape features a white person holding up a Bible as Native Americans converse with them in traditional indigenous clothes. There is a combination of teepees and imperial cover dotting the history, as well as scenes of agriculture.
The college states on its site that “people who want to see the painting removed expressly believe that its portrayal of aboriginal history and European settler history in Alberta harm and offend.” Some people want to keep it for its historical and educational value.
The college weighs several different options, including leaving it alone, covering it up, leaving it alone with interpretive panels to contextualize it, removing it and keeping it in storage, or renovating it.
The Alberta History painting in the Rutherford South Reading Room was a gift from the musician Henry George Glyde, a professor and head of the Department of Art, according to its website. Instructors, staff members, as well as numerous artists and writers have exchanged and expressed thoughts about how the work has portrayed Alberta’s indigenous and European resident history in the decades since.
According to Real North, the mural’s primary draw is that it glorifies colonialism and portrays Native Americans, but some scholars want it to be preserved.
Odile Cisneros, a professor of modern languages at the University of Alberta who wants the artwork to be preserved, claimed to the news outlet that the artist was truly interested in the subject.
He is acting like an artist who thought they were doing something revolution by really representing Aboriginal individuals in a public place where they had not previously been represented, Cisneros said.
The issue is undergoing initial feedback until the end of August. If the university covers up the mural, it would n’t be the first.
Numerous U.S. institutions have covered up or removed historical paintings that have historically been difficult, primarily because of their representations of prisoners or Native Americans, as The College Fix’s Campus Cancel Culture Database tales.
MORE: UW-Stout’s border paintings – deemed’ dangerous’ – slated for’ managed’ campus rooms
IMAGE: University of Alberta YouTube section
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