mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)

December 19, 2019 6:51 PM

Kent Monkman "is a Cree artist who is widely known for his provocative interventions into Western European and American art history. He explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experiences—across a variety of mediums, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation." Starting today, his diptych, mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) will be on display at the Met Fifth Avenue's Great Hall until April 2020. His Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience is currently on display at the Winnipeg Art Gallery [some links potentially NSFW owing to mild artistic nudity].

Shame and Prejudice: Excerpts from the Memoir of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (pdf)

Galleries via Monkman's website:

Painting

Drawing

Installation

Film

Photo

Performance

Some of Monkman's film and video work:

Sisters & Brothers

In a pounding critique of Canada's colonial history, this short film draws parallels between the annihilation of the bison in the 1890s and the devastation inflicted on the Indigenous population by the residential school system.

Casualties of Modernity

Celebrity artist and humanitarian Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (Kent Monkman) tours a hospital specializing in the treatment of conditions afflicting Modern and Contemporary Art. Led by the Doctor of Fine Arts (Quinton Neufeldt), and closely supervised by the no-nonsense head Nurse (Gillian Edwards), Miss Chief encounters romance, tragedy and triumph.

See also: casualtiesofmodernity.com

Another Feather In Her Bonnet | Miss Chief Eagle Testickle & Jean Paul Gaultier:

Another Feather In Her Bonnet—a surprise performance by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle and Jean Paul Gaultier, presented at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts—represents the symbolic union of two artists who have come together to challenge ideas of cultural appropriation.

Honour Dance VR

Honour Dance is a virtual reality experience based on a 2008 five-channel video installation by Kent Monkman, Dance to the Berdashe. Set in a verdant meadow at magic hour, Honour Dance offers a contemporary re-interpretation of a traditional Indigenous ritual featuring the “Berdashe”, a gender-bending figure whose behaviour and very existence astonished and appalled European explorers of North America.

Interviews, discussions, and lectures:

Miss Chief's Wet Dream

Kent Monkman’s monumental painting Miss Chief’s Wet Dream explores the Guswenta or Two Row Wampum Treaty, a Haudenosaunee-Dutch alliance formed in 1613. An homage to French history painting, the maritime scene mythologizes early relations established between Indigenous peoples and European settlers on Turtle Island. Painted at a scale of 144" x 288" (12 feet by 24 feet), Miss Chief’s Wet Dream takes inspiration from artistic masters both Indigenous and European. This painting is a part of the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

The Deluge

In The Deluge an allegorical flood of settler cultures displaces Indigenous people from the lands to which they belong. Despite the many losses and adversity caused by dispossession, the resilience of the original people of Turtle Island and their connection to their culture has endured.

Kent Monkman | APTN FaceToFace

‘Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience’ is a new art exhibit travelling the country challenging Canadians to look beyond the glossy celebrations for Canada’s 150th birthday.

Artist Kent Monkman believes at this point in time it’s important to have a critical perspective of Canada. Monkman joins Face to Face to discuss his work that depicts how colonial policies have institutionalized Indigenous people in Canada.

Kent Monkman: Casualties of Modernity at the University of Michigan

Q&A: Artist Kent Monkman takes a trip back to Winnipeg's North End | Kent Monkman goes back to the Urban Rez

The Canadian Cree Artist Remixing History in the Met’s Great Hall

posted by mandolin conspiracy (10 comments total)

The paintings are so rich and so challenging. Thanks for posting.
posted by janell at 7:55 PM on December 19, 2019

Daniel Boone's First View of the Kentucky Valley
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:10 PM on December 19, 2019

I love his paintings, there's a few at the AGO that just leap off the wall. so good
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 8:16 PM on December 19, 2019

It's challenging, it's sexy, it's funny, it's so, so important.
posted by thecjm at 8:20 PM on December 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Skewers colonial landscape art completely. I would enjoy reading some art analysis to better understand the european art styles that Monkman envelops and surpasses.
posted by anthill at 1:55 AM on December 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

I saw Casualties of Modernity when I was in Montreal and it was probably my favorite piece of art I saw on that trip (and this was Montreal, so there were a lot of contenders)
posted by dinty_moore at 4:27 AM on December 20, 2019

I think the best part of Monkman is that his art is brutally, viciously indicting the people and institutions who buy it, and they totally eat it up. He's 100% in on strip-mining white Canadian colonial guilt; turned it into a machine for printing money. And I am here for it.

Monkman and Tanya Tagaq are absolute treasures. (And when they get together sparks fly.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:38 AM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]

Bow down to Miss Chief.

From Shame and Prejudice: Excerpts from the Memoir of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

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. A gender-bending time-traveller, Miss Chief lives in the past, present and future. She embodies the flawed and playful trickster spirit, teasing out the truths behind false histories and cruel experiences.

I love this, thank you so much for sharing this.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:59 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would enjoy reading some art analysis to better understand the european art styles that Monkman envelops and surpasses.

His U of M talk is well worth watching — he spends a good chunk of time addressing this in a fair bit of detail.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:56 AM on December 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

Via @KentMonkman:

Installation view of mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) in The Great Hall of @metmuseum:

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posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:52 PM on December 27, 2019