Chapter 17&18 Flashcards
First Nations artists that represent Post-Modernism
Bob Boyer
Carl Beam
Jane Ann Poitras
Lawrence Paul Yuxwelupton
Rebecca Belmore
Shelly Niro
Bob Boyer (1948-2004)
- European & First Nations ancestors
- known for producing political installations
- combine elements of western traditional art with metis?
- we see historic plains imagery in his art
- refers to the repressive actions by the government
- many promises made to first nations
cree could see traditional life disappearing.
A GOVERNMENT BLANKET POLICY, 1983 BOB BOYER
SHelly Niro 1954
- collaborators act out and demolish a catalogue of gendered social and racial stereotypes.
- challenges idea native people are restricted
- studied at OCA
- incorporate photographs as stand alone images in series and parts of installatons
- motivations are historic reclaimation, colonial critique and celebration of everyday life and identity
SHELLEY NIRO (B.1954), HAUDENOSAUNEE, MOHAWKS IN BEEHIVES,1991, HAND-TINTED PHOTOGRAPH
- drew its impetus from events surrounding the standoff and gulf war of 1991
SHELLEY NIRO, THE IROQUOIS IS A HIGHLY DEVELOPED MATRIARCHAL SOCIETY, 1991
Carl Beam 1943 - 2005
- juxaposed photographic images drawn from colonial archives newspaper morgues and private collections to represent the attempted erasure of the First Nations and the preservation of their culture.
- interested in what Regina 5 was doing
- multimedia works including new media
- uses photo transfer technique
CARL BEAM , MELTDOWN, 1984
- photographic refernces to first nations
- art historical references
- autobiographical references
Jane Ash Poitras 1951
- juxaposed photographic images drawn from colonial archives newspaper morgues and private collections to represent the attempted erasure of the First Nations and the preservation of their culture.
- comments on the effects of colonization and attempt of assimilation
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JANE ANN POITRAS, LIVING IN THE STORM TOO LONG, 1992,
LAWRENCE PAUL YUXWELUPTON (B.1957)
- graduated Emily Carr College of Art & Design in 1983
- developed a recognizable approach in paintings that deal with environmental issues and racist agendas.
- his acute socio-political commentary challenges popular romantic notions of Northwest coast art and replaces ideas of authenticity with an attention to current realities.
LAWRENCE PAUL YUXWELUPTON, SCORCHED EARTH, CLEAR-CUT LOGGING ON NATIVE SOVEREIGN LAND, SHAMAN COMING TO FIX, 1991
- direct criticism of CNDN gov’t w first nations people
- represent impat oc environmental practices
- “painting is a form of political activism”
Rebecca Belmore
- her multidiscplinary practice deals with her relationship to place, history and identity and circumstance.
- her piece fountain seeks to expose the conflicted global history of colonial relations and contemporary interactions
- it reinforces and extends her sensitivities to history place memory and absence.
REBECCA BELMORE, FRINGE, PHOTOGRAPH, 2008
feminist statement
statement of colonialism
genocide of aboriginal people
First Nations Art : context of Assimilation Antimodernism & Nationalism
- residential schools deprived Aboriginal students of the opportunity to learn indigenous traditions of painting carving embroidery and weaving.
- They also systemically deferred the access to professional art school training that was necessary to Aboriginal artists’ participation in Western forms of fine art production until after Indians had become “civilized”
- oppressive laws and sanctions did great damage to art traditions by discouraging the production of the many genres of visual art whose purpose was to enrich rituals and ceremonies.
First Nations Art : context of Assimilation Antimodernism & Nationalism 2
- other laws that confined Aboriginal peoples to reserves and restricted their freedom of movement also worked against the development of visual art by isolation artists.
- the growth of canadian nationalism could also work to balance official policies of erasure sometimes unintentionally
- the search for a distinctively canadian cultural identity led ethnologists to include Aboriginal art in influential exhibitiions as a source of inspiration for settlers.
First Nations Art : context of Assimilation Antimodernism & Nationalism 3
- George raley principal of the Coqualeetza Indian Residential School put on display the large collection of Northwest Coast masks carvings and baskets he had assembled during his missionary work in BC
- using them as models for the girls instruction in basketry and boys in minature totem pole carving.
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Continuing Traditions
- Arthur McDames 1855 - 1962
- was still carving in the Gitxsan area in 1952
- tradition didn’t die 1968 new carving school opened
- over next few years traditionally trained carvers from many parts of Northwest Coast came to teach
- fostering an extraordinary renewal of traditional arts.
Mungo Martin
- carver
- restored and replicated old poles to recreate traditional Northwest Coast houses
-
MUNGO MARTIN 1879-1962), DOUGLAS CRANMER (1927-2006), AND BILL REID (1920-1998),
HAIDA HOUSE COMPLEX, 1958-1962
Early 20th century artists
Angus Trudeau, George Clutesi, Gerald Tailfeathers, Norval Morrisseau.
Angus Trudeau(1905-84)
- created a corpus of paintings and sculptures based on old photographs postcards and other printed images that depict the great lakes steamers on which he had worked and the logging camps and communities the boats supplied.
- Trudeau’s work is a record of Anishinaabe modernity and of his participation in travel, and commerce.
- Trudeau’s works negotiate memory and history tradition and modernity
ANGUS TRUDEAU (1905-84), ANISHINABE, MANITOU, BADGELEY ISLAND, 1920,
George Clutesi 1905 - 88
- attended residential school
- worked as fisherman and construction worker
- after accident re-engaged with interest in visul art and traditional narrative and performance from his youth
- encouraged and mentored by Emily Carr
- exhibited work in major institutions
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GEORGE CLUTESI (1905-1988), NUU-CHAH-NULTH,
SUNSET, 1964
GERALD TAILFEATHERS, (1925-1975
- training began in childhood mid 1930’s
- completed 3 year course at Alberta college of art and design
- worked salaried jobs painting in his spare time
- politically engaged throughout his adult life
- pivotal figure in history of 21st century aboriginal art-
tailfeathers 2
- signature style is grounded in the illusionistic realism tinged by romanticism and nostalgia of his teachers Reiss and Link.
- his paintings drew on stories and oral traditions from his childhood and further enriched by his research into historic plains ways of life and study of museum collections
GERALD TAILFEATHERS, (KAINAI, SUN DANCE SCENE, BLOOD RESERVE, 1906, 1956
Norval Morrisseau(1931-2007
- northern ontario childhood marked by experiences of poverty and residential schooling
- drew inspiration from grandfather a traditional Ojibwa shaman
- continued the Anishinaabe shamanistic tradition by making art
- 20’s Morrisseau began to write down Ojibwa oral traditions and stories to illustrate them on birchbark and plywood.
Morrisseau 2
- in late 50s early 60s transitioned to the media techniques and genres of western fine art with the help of Joseph Weinstein and Sewlyn Dewdney
- his canvases gave visual expression to Ojibwa spiritual practices and oral traditions and personal journeys.
- translated the language of Anishinaabe pictography into a new mode
- his success inspired younger generation of Cree and Ojibwa known as the Woodland School to take up painting as a mode of cultural renewal and personal expression.
NORVAL MORRISSEAU (1931-2007), ANISHINAABE, UNTITLED (THUNDERBIRD), 1960
NORVAL MORRISSEAU, THE GREAT RABBIT/HARE, NANABOZHO, 1969
PICTOGRAPH OF NANABOZHO AT MAZINAW ROCK, BON ECHO PROVINCIAL PARK, ONTARIO
Woodland School
younger generation of Cree and Ojibwa
group of painters from the region
Indian Group of 7.
- professional native indian artists incorporated PNIAI
- organized in 1973 and incorporated in WInnipeg in 1974
- group strongly opposed government marketing strategies that failed to recognize the standing of Aboriginal painters and sculptors than craftspeople
- the seven members believed the could avoid problems associated with the gov’t marketing strategy if successful in fundraising through sale of their own work.
- Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Carl Ray and Joseph Sanchez.
West coast First Nations art
Expo 67 & The development of native art.
- Aboriginal activists forced the organizers of Expo 67 the Montreal World’s Fair to fund a seperate Indians of Canada Pavilion that would be controlled and curated by Aboriginal people.
- inside the pavilion they mounted a exhibition that presented history, colonization, contemporary lifestyles and social problems from an Aboriginal perspective.
- Expo 67 provided the first opportunity to bring together Indian artists, politicians and federal bureaucrats in a common forum.
Artists represented at the Vancouver airport
RICHARD HUNT, DEMPSEY BOB, ROBERT DAVIDSON,
DEMPSEY BOB (B.1948),
, TAHITAN-TLINGIT,
THE STORY OF FROG WOMAN AND RAVEN, VANCOUVER AIRPORT,
ROBERT DAVIDSON, (B.1946), THE SKY HUGGING THE WORLD, VANCOUVER AIRPORT
- studied at vancouver school of art
- closely obersved historical haida forms and techniques in museum collections
- 1969 carved and raised totem pole in his home village of masset first to be raised in haida gwaii in 50 years.
ROBERT DAVIDSON LEFT: TOTEM POLE, MASSET, HAIDA GWAI, 1969
SUSAN POINT, MUSQUEAM, (B.1952)
- studied traditional phallic art?
- self-taught
- preferred medium red-cedar wood.
uses traditional figures to depict the theme of light
SUSAN POINT, MUSQUEAM FLIGHT. SPINDLE WHORL, 1995, VANCOUVER AIRPORT, INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS
carving incorporates traditional patterns.
