Nicholas Galanin | White Noise

NOTE: ONE IS NOW OPEN FOR WALK-INS from 11am-5pm Tuesdays-Saturdays.

Quint Gallery’s ONE is pleased to present a tapestry by Tlingit and Unangax̂ multi-disciplinary artist Nicholas Galanin, whose work offers perspective rooted in connection to land and broad engagement with contemporary culture while exploring the complexities of Indigenous identity and representation. 

"White Noise refers to steady droning tones used to mask or obliterate unwanted sounds, an active dissociation occurring when a signal is gone or lost. The work is titled for the sources of American political power and media who produce constant noise in support of xenophobia. The work points to whiteness as a construct used throughout the world to obliterate voices and rights of cultures regardless of complexion. Calling attention to white noise as a source of increasing intolerance and hate in the United States as politicians, media, and citizens attempt to mask and obliterate the reality of America’s genocidal past and racist present. The White noise referenced is produced by a kind of whiteness based on more than complexion. This White noise is based on capital, blind belief and faith in itself, and fear of everything outside the lines it uses to enforce inclusion or exclusion. The American Prayer rug is hung on a wall in place of flat screen televisions, as the image accompanying the droning sound we use to distract us from our own suffering, from love, from land, from water, from connection; there is no space for prayer, only noise." -Nicholas Galanin

Galanin earned his BFA at London Guildhall University in Jewelry Design and his MFA in Indigenous Visual Arts at Massey University in New Zealand. He has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including the Native American Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, and the 2020 Sydney Biennale. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, LACMA, among others. A seminal work, “Never Forget,” is currently on view in the 2021 iteration of Desert X in Palm Springs. He lives and works in Sitka, Alaska. 

Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery.