Kent Monkman Shame and Prejudice: a Story of Resilience

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

CONTEMPORARY ART / SOCIAL HISTORY KENT MONKMAN SHAME AND PREJUDICE: A STORY OF RESILIENCE Contributors: Kent Monkman, Barbara Fischer, Lucy Lippard, Richard Hill and John Ralston Saul Artist Kent Monkman’s all-encompassing project, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, takes viewers on a journey through Canada’s history, starting in the present and going back to before Canadian confederation. Throughout the book there are clever, albeit controversial, commentaries told by Monkman’s genderfluid, time-travelling, supernatural alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Her narratives take viewers through the history of New France and the fur trade, the nineteenth-century dispossession of indigenous lands through Canadian colonial policies, the horrors of the residential school system, and modern indigenous experiences in urban environments. Shame and Prejudice challenges predominant narratives of Canadian history and honours the resilience of indigenous peoples. This book accompanies Monkman’s largest solo exhibition to date, which is currently travelling across Canada at venues including the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Glenbow September 2020 Museum in Calgary, and the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. The exhibition includes the artist’s own paintings, drawings, and sculptural RRP $64.95 works, which form a dialogue with historical artefacts and artworks borrowed from museums and private collections across Canada. The book ISBN 978-1-912165-26-1 is trilingual with all text in English, French and Cree. Hardback 28 x 23 cm 272 pages Order Information UTP Distribution T +1 (416) 667 7773 [email protected] For Canadian sales enquiries please contact: Hornblower Group T +1 (416) 461 7973 [email protected] Black Dog Press 298 Regents Park Road London N3 2SZ blackdogonline.com VAT 295187265 Company registration number 11182259 CONTEMPORARY ART / SOCIAL HISTORY BIOGRAPHY Kent Monkman Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist of Cree ancestry who is widely known for his provocative interventions into Western European and North American art history. He works with a variety of mediums, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation, and has exhibited at major museums worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Palais de Tokyo and Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City commissioned Monkman to create two large-scale paintings that went on display in the museum’s Great Hall. Order Information UTP Distribution T +1 (416) 667 7773 [email protected] For Canadian sales enquiries please contact: Hornblower Group T +1 (416) 461 7973 [email protected] Black Dog Press 298 Regents Park Road London N3 2SZ blackdogonline.com VAT 295187265 Company registration number 11182259.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Than Two-Spirit: Queer Indigenous Sovereignty and Survivance In
More Than Two-Spirit: Queer Indigenous Sovereignty and Survivance in Museums Caitlin S. Cooper A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Washington 2017 Committee: Kristine Morrissey, Chair Luana Ross Amanda Lock Swarr Qwo-Li Driskill Program authorized to offer degree: Museology © Copyright 2016 Caitlin S. Cooper Abstract The intention of this study was to identify ways museums represent Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous artists. This qualitative study included interviews with six Two-Spirit/queer Indigenous artists, using a phenomenological approach. Museums as cultural institutions built upon colonial ideals have the responsibility to amend museological authority that silence the voices of and refuse space to those that traverse intersectional identities. Two-Spirit artists examine the historical relationship of race, gender, and power as they pertain to material culture, contemporary self-expression, and art. Within this art they are Indigenizing Western academic spaces like museums, demanding accountability from institutions considered vessels of cultural knowledge. Findings suggest that curators’ willingness to listen, communicate, and engage in dialog is critical. The study also found that Two-Spirit artists’ work confronts heteronormativity by exhibiting shifts in gender roles across cultures and time and embodying the values of community organizing, storytelling, and survival. Acknowledgments I foremost want to recognize that I obtained my graduate education from the University of Washington, an institution built on the traditional lands belonging to the Coast Salish peoples of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot Nations. It is an honor to be a guest in this beautiful place, surrounded by the sacred knowledge and energy of your ancestors.
[Show full text]
Kent-Monkman-CV.Pdf
Kent Monkman Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England Bailey Fine Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada EDUCATION 1989 Sheridan College of Applied Arts, Brampton, Ontario Illustration SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Montreal, Quebec Dance to the Berdashe 2008 Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England Kent Monkman Bailey Fine Arts, Toronto, Ontario Dance to the Berdashe Urban Shaman Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba Dance to the Berdashe Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba The Triumph of Mischief 2007 The Union Gallery, Queen’s University, Kingston Théâtre de Cristal Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario The Triumph of Mischief Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Ontario The Triumph of Mischief Pierre Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain, Montreal, Quebec Hunting Scenes and Other Amusements from the Great North West 2006 Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Alberta Kent Monkman with Paul Chaat Smith 2005 The Drake Hotel, Toronto, Ontario Share Eagle Testickle: Artist and Model 2001 The Indian Art Centre, Ottawa, Ontario The Prayer Language 1 Kent Monkman Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England Bailey Fine Arts, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 1997 Deleon White Gallery, Toronto, Ontario 1994 Discovery Gallery, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario The Creative Process Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario Creation Wheel Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta The Museum Show The New Gallery, Calgary, Alberta The Museum Show 1993 Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 Art Gallery of Ontario,
[Show full text]
Indigenous Art in the Museum Context: an Exhibition and Analysis of the Work of Kent Monkman
1 M.A. in Communications and Culture Project Paper Indigenous Art in the Museum Context: An Exhibition and Analysis of the Work of Kent Monkman Kerry Swanson Introduction From October 3,2007 to February 14, 2009, Candice Hopkins and I co-curated an exhibition of Indigenous art entitled Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers. 1 Held at the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the show included work by Canadian artist Kent Monkman and seven other contemporary artists, as well as a selection of historical artifacts from the ROM's collections. The genesis of the show grew from the curators' desire to engage in the ongoing debate around the collision between past and present that was to be so conspicuously manifested in the Daniel Libeskind-designed postmodernist extension to the ROM. It was a timely opportunity to exhibit some of the groundbreaking work coming from some of Canada's contemporary artists, particularly in the context of the museum, which maintains a traditional approach to Indigenous arts and cultures. As the inaugural ICC-generated exhibit in the newly opened ROM wing, the show was to comment on the multiple layers of the colonial relationship as it was reflected by the museum's history of displaying and housing Indigenous art, and the relationship of contemporary Indigenous artists with the museum and its collections. The Shapeshifters exhibit proposed an indirect examination of the museum's role in containing and interpreting Indigenous art and artifacts. By demonstrating the non- 2 static nature of Indigenous contemporary art and the artists' ancestral and emotional connections to the artifacts held in the ROM's collections, the exhibit aimed to break open some of the constraints and limitations inherent to the anthropological and aesthetic forms of representation favoured by the museum.
[Show full text]
Excerpts from the Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle
1 FOREWORD BY Kent Monkman n June() of 2011, during my first, and only, visit to the Prado, I was unexpectedly transported by a Spanish history painting, Execution of Torrijos and his Companions on the Beach at Málaga (1887-1888), by AntonioI Gisbert. Over many years of looking at and studying great paintings, many have impressed me with their virtuosic technical achievements, but never had a painting reached across a century to pull me into the emotional core of a lived experience with such intensity. It felt as though Gisbert had sent a message into the future, a passionate defense of freedom and a critique of authoritarianism. I was humbled by the effect this deeply political work of art had on me, and felt a new urgency to undertake a serious subject with similar gravitas. I could not think of any history paintings that conveyed or authorized Indigenous experience into the canon of art history. Where were the paintings from the nineteenth century that recounted, with passion and empathy, the dispossession, starvation, incarcer- ation and genocide of Indigenous people here on Turtle Island? Could my own paintings reach forward a hundred and fifty years to tell our history of the colonization of our people? 51 FOREWORD Over the past fifteen years, with Miss Chief’s cunning use of runny mascara, and my deep love of art history, I have developed a personal language of painting and art making in a variety of disciplines. Using humour, parody, and camp, I’ve confronted the devastation of colonialism while celebrating the plural sexualities present in pre-contact Indigenous North America.
[Show full text]
1 of 5 for IMMEDIATE RELEASE Kent Monkman's Exhibition Shame
Art Museum University of Toronto — Justina M. Barnicke Gallery University of Toronto Art Centre 7 Hart House Circle Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3 artmuseum.utoronto.ca FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Kent Monkman's exhibition Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience ushers in Canada’s Sesquicentennial in 2017 at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto January 26 – March 4, 2017 A project by Kent Monkman Kent Monkman’s new, large scale project takes the viewer on a journey through Canada’s history that starts in the present and takes us back to a hundred and fifty years before Confederation. With its entry points in the harsh urban environment of Winnipeg’s north end, and contemporary life on the reserve, the exhibition takes us all the way back to the period of New France and the fur trade. The Rococo masterpiece The Swing by Jean- Honoré Fragonard is reinterpreted as an installation with Monkman’s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, in a beaver trimmed baroque dress, swinging back and forth between the Generals Wolfe and Montcalm. As both artist and curator, Kent Monkman’s first major solo-exhibition at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto includes his own paintings, drawings and sculptural works, in dialogue with historical artefacts and art works borrowed from museum and private collections from across the country. The exhibition narrates a story of Canada through the lens of First Nations' resilience. Celebrated for his unorthodox approach to history—entailing humour, parody and artistic fiction—Monkman’s project takes aim at stereotypes perpetuated in popular culture, high art, and spectacle: heteronormativity unravels in polysexual desire; colonial empire is upended in post-colonial 1 of 5 Art Museum University of Toronto — Justina M.
[Show full text]
Newsletter Six New Books for Canadian Art
ART CANADA INSTITUTE INSTITUT DE L’ART CANADIEN AUGUST 27, 2021 SIX NEW BOOKS FOR CANADIAN ART LOVERS Coming Soon 2021 & 2022 The Art Canada Institute is proud to announce the next season of the Canadian Online Art Book Project, which includes six additions to our growing collection of nearly fifty publications on the nation’s foremost artists—all available free of charge, in both English and French. Importantly, we are expanding our commitment to online programming that makes Canadian art and its history a contemporary conversation by, for the first time, publishing comprehensive thematic books alongside titles on individual artists. Together they showcase an unprecedented number of works of art, making the forthcoming season of ACI publications the most ambitious to date. We hope you enjoy the previews below and look forward to sharing our new releases with you in the coming months. Sara Angel Founder and Executive Director, Art Canada Institute MAUD LEWIS: LIFE & WORK by Ray Cronin September 2021 Maud Lewis, Roadster and Cow, c.1960s, Collection of Dr. Doug Lewis and Florence Lewis, Digby, Nova Scotia. One of Canada’s most beloved folk artists, Maud Lewis (1901–1970) (left) is famed for her brilliantly coloured and iconic images of the Maritimes. Born and raised in rural Nova Scotia, she spent much of her life in physical pain, suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Despite working in isolation, poverty, and challenging conditions, Lewis forged her reputation and created an extraordinary series of highly celebrated paintings. Although her art has been celebrated by Hollywood—in the 2016 filmMaudie —and in a 2020 limited edition Canada Post stamp set, few Canadians are familiar with the intricacies and importance of her career.
[Show full text]
RE-FRAMING the AMERICAN WEST: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ENGAGE HISTORY by © 2015 Mindy N. Besaw Submitted to the Graduate Degree Pr
RE-FRAMING THE AMERICAN WEST: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ENGAGE HISTORY By © 2015 Mindy N. Besaw Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________ Co-chairperson, Charles C. Eldredge _______________________________ Co-chairperson, David C. Cateforis _______________________________ John Pultz ______________________________ Stephen Goddard ______________________________ Michael J. Krueger Date Defended: November 30, 2015 The Dissertation Committee for MINDY N. BESAW certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: RE-FRAMING THE AMERICAN WEST: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS ENGAGE HISTORY _______________________________ Co-chairperson, Charles C. Eldredge _______________________________ Co-chairperson, David C. Cateforis Date approved: November 30, 2015 ii Abstract This study examines contemporary artists who revisit, revise, reimagine, reclaim, and otherwise engage directly with art of the American Frontier from 1820-1920. The revision of the historic images calls attention to the myth and ideologies imbedded in the imagery. Likewise, these contemporary images are essentially a framing of western imagery informed by a system of values and interpretive strategies of the present. The re-framing of the historic West opens a dialogue that expands beyond the frame, to look at images and history from different angles. This dissertation examines twentieth- and twenty-first century artists such as the Cowboy Artists of America, Mark Klett, Tony Foster, Byron Wolfe, Stephen Hannock, Bill Schenck, and Kent Monkman alongside historic western American artists such as Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Timothy O’Sullivan, Thomas Moran, W.R. Leigh, and Albert Bierstadt.
[Show full text]
E Alternative Realism of Kent Monkman a Virtuoso Paints Indigenous Life Into Canadian History by DANIEL BAIRD ( FEB
MENU SHARE (https://thewalrus.ca/) ARTS & CULTURE (HTTPS://THEWALRUS.CA/CATEGORY/CULTURE/) e Alternative Realism of Kent Monkman A virtuoso paints Indigenous life into Canadian history BY DANIEL BAIRD (HTTPS://THEWALRUS.CA/AUTHOR/DANIEL-BAIRD-2/) FEB. 7, 2017 The Daddies, by Kent Monkman. Part of the Shame and Prejudice exhibit. In 1883, the Canadian government commissioned Robert Harris to execute a group portrait of the participants in the 1864 Charloetown Conference. e painting was exactly what you’d expect: twen-three men in velveteen nineteenth-century British aire arranged in a semi-circle around a long table, with John A. Macdonald gripping a document, presumably about to launch into oratory. While the original Fathers of Confederation remains an emblematic moment in Canadian history, it was destroyed in the Parliament fire of 1916. Fiy-eight years later, in anticipation of the centennial celebrations of 1967, the insurance company Confederation Life commissioned Rex Woods to recreate Fathers of Confederation. e painting still hangs in Parliament. Half a century later, on January 26, Cree artist Kent Monkman’s exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience opened at the Universi of Toronto Art Centre. e centerpiece of the show, which will travel across the country to coincide with Canada’s 150th celebrations, is an immense group portrait titled e Daddies (2016), a mostly accurate reproduction of Woods’ painting, with one difference—a naked Indigenous man in stileo heels heraldically gesturing from the stool in front of the group. He is Monkman’s drag doppelganger, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a flamboyant persona who appears in his paintings, videos and performances.
[Show full text]
Sumed Corruptibility and Sexual Innocence. on the Other Hand, If We Step Back from the Localized Politics of Any One Curator Or
nomic value to certain objects that can remain in the cate- gory of “high art” or “histor- ical.” Especially when an object references the pleasure and politics of the experi- ences of women, people of color, and transgender artists, these are the pieces that are most frequently attacked as “offensive,” “pornographic,” and “obscene.” For this rea- son, Irreverent emphasizes artwork by women, trans artists, and people of color as these artists often experience the most intense backlash against their work, at times, even within the mainstream gay community. Thus, the ex- hibition is not positing cen- sorship as an “us” versus Kent Monkman, Duel After the Masquerade, 2007. Collection of Jennifer Dattels. “them” dynamic wherein we can clearly delineate two bi- sumed corruptibility and sexual innocence. On the other hand, nary camps of sex positive versus sex negative publics or if we step back from the localized politics of any one curator or straight publics or even politically Right publics against the institution, these spaces and people, whether they realize it or GLBT community. Queer theoretical scholarship has finally not, are also operating under larger macroeconomic and histor- caught up to what queer artists and activists have long known: ical contexts that mold and massage bias, prejudice, and stereo- that there exists a politics of homonormativity, as well as het- types into these parameters and questions of “fit,” “genre,” and eronormativity, against which artists interested in queer sexual- “personal taste.” ities must also contend. For instance, let’s consider censorship in the case of the For example, consider the story of trans artist Tobaron Wax- multi-disciplinary artwork of Toronto-based Cree/British/Irish man and the censorship of his work: After seeing Portrait of artist Kent Monkman.
[Show full text]
Kent Monkman
▼ HOME ABOUT INTERACTIVE RESOURCES LOG IN EN FR E A R L Y L I F E A N D E D U C A T I O N ARTICLE BY RUSSELL BINGHAM I N F L U E N C E S REVISED BY M A T U R E W O R K DANIEL BAIRD C A N A D A 1 5 0 PUBLISHED 04/23/13 LAST EDITED 02/03/17 H O M E P E O P L E A R T I S T S Kent Monkman Using a virtuoso style partly based on the 19th century American Hudson River School painters, Kent Monkman's work slyly, and often humourously, critiques the way Canadians have treated and depicted Indigenous peoples. Kent Monkman Kent Monkman Kent Monkman, artist, ﬁlmmaker (born 13 November 1965 in St Marys, ON). Often addressing issues pertaining to both gay and Indigenous history, Kent Monkman is among the most skilled and successful artists of his generation. Early Life and Education Kent Monkman is a member of the Fish River Band in northern Manitoba. Of Swampy Cree, English and Irish descent, he was born in Ontario and raised in Manitoba, primarily in Winnipeg, as well as on various reserves in northern Manitoba. He was drawn to artmaking at an early age, and at 17 began to study illustration through a commercial art program at Sheridan College of Applied Arts in Brampton , ON. He subsequently attended various other Canadian and US institutions, including the Banff Centre, the Sundance Institute in Los Angeles and the Canadian Screen Training Institute.
[Show full text]
Winter 2012 – 13 December 2012 – May 2013 OVERVIEW Winter at the Power Plant
exhibitions / programs / events Winter 2012 – 13 December 2012 – May 2013 OVERVIEW Winter at The Power Plant Our winter season is extended to offers a dynamic project that poses questions about present a major group exhibition and contemporary democracy and institutionalism. Before the opening of the Winter exhibitions, a new solo project Thauberger will be here to speak (12 December) about her current project. In the New Year, we The new Winter season explores the intersection of present a series of conversations between artists urban culture and Aboriginal identity with the included in the exhibition Beat Nation and curators group exhibition Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and based in Toronto. Aboriginal Culture. This show features twenty-three Our International Lecture Series boasts an artists from across the Americas who meld impressive roster of speakers this season, includ- Aboriginal heritage with pop culture, modern ing widely recognized curators Anthony Huberman imagery and street style. Together, the works in (7 March) and Franklin Sirmans (20 March). Cel- Beat Nation challenge widely-held stereotypes ebrated artist and filmmaker Babette Mangolte will about First Nation art practices, reinterpreting speak with international curator Barbara Clausen tradition to reflect contemporary Aboriginal as part of our ongoing collaboration with the experiences. Images Festival. Re-interpretation is also present in the new In addition, we are pleased to collaborate with work by Vancouver-based artist Althea Thauberger. World Stage, Harbourfront Centre’s international Marat Sade Bohnice is the title of Thauberger’s performing arts series, to present the theatrical run project for The Power Plant. It is an experimental of what are we saying by Toronto-based choreog- documentary/video installation about the restag- rapher Ame Henderson and Canada’s Public ing of Peter Weiss’s play The Persecution and Recordings.
[Show full text]
Art, Activism, Politics a Canadian Commentary
ART CANADA INSTITUTE INSTITUT DE L’ART CANADIEN ART, ACTIVISM, POLITICS A CANADIAN COMMENTARY Works by those who have waded into the sociopolitical discourse, using their creativity as a force for change. Two days ago, President Biden declared “The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer”—a call to action to work towards a better future. Politics, activism, and art often come together, colliding in an enduring, complex relationship. Inspired by this week’s presidential inauguration, we turned our attention to the powerful legacy of Canada’s creative voices on our social-political landscapes. Whether it’s Charles Alexander capturing a portrait of a nineteenth-century crowd in Quebec passionately protesting British colonial rule, Joyce Wieland criticizing the U.S. conflict in Vietnam, or Kent Monkman reminding us of children violently removed from their families by government authorities, Canadian visual artists throughout history have played a vital role in shifting our perspective, daring us to think and act differently in the hope of a better tomorrow. With wishes from everyone at the ACI for safety, wellness, and a brighter future, we invite you to enjoy this week’s selection. Sara Angel Founder and Executive Director, Art Canada Institute BETSY ROSS, LOOK WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO THE FLAG YOU MADE WITH SUCH CARE by Joyce Wieland Fifty-one years before Trump’s inauguration, Canadian artist Joyce Wieland (1930–1998) created Betsy Ross, Look What They’ve Done to the Flag You Made with Such Care, 1966. The piece by Toronto-born Wieland is a lament for the United States during the Vietnam-protest era, and references the woman credited with making the first American flag, Betsy Ross (1752–1836).
[Show full text]