Rebecca Belmore’s sculpture ishikode (fire), one of the most talked about pieces to come out of the Whitney Biennial, is a ghostly, imposing piece that the artist made using a sleeping bag that she cast in clay. It’s a haunting figure, with one arm keeping the sleeping bag in place, and it’s painted in a dull ochre that fades into dark brown. Encircled by several hundred bullets, this figure is stuck in as much as it is shaped by this sprawling metal trap. An Anishinaabe artist, Belmore is drawing attention to the continued violence that Indigenous people face today in these supposedly “post-colonial” times. —Shanti Escalante-De Mattei