I’ve probably posted pictures of this new wing of the American Museum of Natural History before. It actually opened while I was living abroad and I haven’t been in yet. Is it just me, or does every new museum building have a requirement to emulate Frank Gehry’s Bilbao swoopy, rounded look?
The plaque says, “Addressing the Statue,” and notes that while some love the historic statue, others abhor the clear subservient stance of the Native and African American.
In fact, the plaque does not so much address the statue’s problematic nature as leverage it to invite visitors to enter the museum “to learn more,” one of the natural long-term outcomes of Ronald Reagan’s charge to mediate everything in the marketplace.
A few months ago the statue was surrounded by stanchions to keep anti-racists at bay. Evidently the Museum has calculated that zealousness to have abated.
