by Nicholas Galanin, Candice Hopkins, Merritt Johnson, Gerald Clarke Jr., and Neville Wakefield.
Collector and Limited Edition
"The original Hollywoodland sign [erected in 1923] was an advertisement for a real estate development for white-only land purchases. This work is essentially the opposite: a call to landowners and others to invite them to join the landback movement."
— Nicholas Galanin
Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present the newly released photographic edition of Nicholas Galanin's monumental project, Never Forget. The work documents the site-specific installation that was on view from March to September, 2021 outside of Palm Springs for Desert X 2021.
For Nicholas Galanin, a Tlingit and Unangax̂ artist and musician, memory and land are inevitably entwined. The 45-foot letters of Never Forget reference the Hollywood sign, which initially spelled out HOLLYWOODLAND and was erected to promote a whites-only development. Its timing coincided with a development in Palm Springs that also connected to the film industry: Studio contracts limited actors’ travel, contributing to the city’s rise as playground and refuge of the stars. Meanwhile, the white settler mythology of America as the land of the free, home of the brave was promoted in the West, and the landscape was cinematized through the same lens. Never Forget asks settler landowners to participate in the work by transferring land titles and management to local Indigenous communities. The work is a call to action and a reminder that land acknowledgments become only performative when they do not explicitly support the land back movement. Not only does the work transmit a shockwave of historical correction, but also promises to do so globally through social media.
Nicholas Galanin (b. 1979) lives and works in Sitka, Alaska. He earned his BFA at London Guildhall University, his MFA at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, and he has apprenticed with master carvers and jewelers. Galanin was a standout participant in both the 2020 Biennale of Sydney and the 2019 Whitney Biennial. He has also participated in the 2017 Venice Biennale in the Native American Pavilion. Galanin’s work is in permanent collections such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Denver Art Museum, Princeton, University Art Museum, Portland Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, and Cornell University Art Museum among others.
- Publisher: Minor Matters, New York and Seattle
- Artist book: "Nicholas Galanin: Never Forget"
- Texts: Candice Hopkins, Merritt Johnson, Gerald Clarke Jr., and Neville Wakefield.
- Photographs: Lance Gerber
- ISBN: 978-1-7356423-1-4
- Book size: 8.5 x 12 inches, 48 pages (accordion)
- Hardcover with slipcase
- Limited Edition of 600