Of all that painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848) portrayed in his landscapes, what was not included in his art is a signature of his body of work. His paintings are purposefully far removed from the industrial revolution that then was encroaching on the upstate New York communities the artist often depicted. As Cole avoided these signs of modernization, his idea of the American frontier also greatly ignored the presence of Native Americans, whose lives and communities were being devastated by the tyrannical rule of the American government.
Although the artist’s work will always hold this oversight, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site at Cole’s nineteenth-century home and studio, Cedar Grove, in Catskills, New York, seeks to bring Indigenous perspectives into the museum’s gallery space. One such initiative is Alan Michelson: Prophetstown, an exhibition on view until December 1. The solo show features the art of Mohawk artist Alan Michelson, who grew up near the Oxbow on the Connecticut River, where Cole’s famous landscape was inspired. “My work deals with history and site,” the artist explains, “And you probably couldn’t find a better or more appropriate site (Thomas Cole Site)… being so associated with (the) American landscape.”
In a room filled with Cole’s art and studio furniture is Michelson’s titular installation Prophetstown (2012), which is composed of eight paper cabins modeled after actual and fictional homes. “The cabin has come to embody certain American virtues…that enterprising sort of frontier spirit, but all of that came at the expense of Native people.” The artwork’s name was sourced from a community founded by Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa “Prophet” in the early 1800s, now the Prophetstown State Park in Indiana. A selection of these cabins incorporate media into their design, ranging from pages of the newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, to Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto, while others depict pop culture references of Native violence.
The inspiration for Prophetstown was the log cabin in Cole’s Home in the Woods (1847), which depicts a white family living on the frontier. Printed across Michelson’s cabin roof and exterior walls is a reproduction of the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which stole over three million acres of Native land for United States settlers. “I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to make a model of something that probably never even existed in reality…And then I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if (I) could represent it in a way that challenged Cole’s representation or the popular representations of the day, which were symbolizing all of those American virtues.”
In another room of Cedar Grove is a video installation of Michelson’s Hanödaga:yas (Town Destroyer) (2018) that is projected upon a Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) replica bust of George Washington. The artwork refers to the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) title given to the first American president, translating to “Town Destroyer”, whose rampage during the Revolutionary War wiped out villages and stole the tribe’s land as they were forced to find safety in Niagara. Projected on the sculpture’s face is a series of images, including maps, portraits of Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant and King George III of England, and historical markers that tell the history of Washington’s devastating campaign. As the images transition, a soundtrack of traditional rattles and water drums play as members of the Haudenosaunee repeat the name Hanödaga:yas.
Also on display in the house is Michelson’s No York (1997), “an old-school” state map with colonial place names erased with paint. “There are native place names that have endured and that have survived colonialism… (this piece) draws attention to the fact that New York is a superimposition onto an already inhabited set of homelands.”
When visitors venture outside of the house, they are met with The Ratio of Art to Nature (2008), an installation of three black curved mirrors attached to the home’s porch and exterior wall, and a large tree that Michelson believes dates before the artist’s time at Cedar Grove. The pieces are positioned to provide views of the house— “It’s like a little painting of Cole’s home—” and the surrounding landscape and Catskill mountains that the artist loved. But due to the curved surface of the pieces, Michelson notes, “people can make their …own compositions, depending on their positions, relative to the mirrors, the angles of sight.”
Alan Michelson: Prophetstown is a part of the OPEN HOUSE: Contemporary Art in Conversation with Cole. This curatorial program highlights the work of contemporary artists in relation to Cole’s legacy. More of Michelson’s work is on display in another show at the museum Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape, and it will be on view until October 27. The exhibition aims to create conversations between Indigenous-made artwork and landscapes by Cole. Among the artwork featured in this exhibit is Thom, Where are the Pocumtucks (The Oxbow) by Kay WalkingStick (1935–), which ANTIQUES readers will recognize from Elizabeth Pochada’s story “Looking Both Ways.”
On his experience with the Thomas Cole Site, Michelson happily states, “They’ve been wonderful collaborators in the exhibition right from the start, and all the way through the final installation… they’re just generally supporting the exhibition.”
Alan Michelson: Prophetstown • Thomas Cole National Historic Site • to December 1 • thomascole.org
