Ancient to the Future: Nicholas Galanin Aims to Change How Indigenous Art Is Understood

Years ago, onto the surface of the earth, Nicholas Galanin painted a petroglyph of the kind found on rocks and mesas in expansive landscapes around the globe. It tapped into a lineage of ancient artworks whose meanings can be simple and complex in ways that take ages to reveal themselves in full. But the pattern of this petroglyph was unique—in the form of the word “Indians” as styled slightly cartoonishly by the Cleveland Indians baseball team. And the expansive landscape was