RESPONSE, REJECTION, RECONCILIATION: EXHIBITING CANADA 150

GREATEST HITS

BY: AMY INTRATOR

Welcome back to the final edition of Greatest Hits 2017! Writing for this column has allowed me to look to the recent past to make sense of developments in the museum world today. With the end of the year quickly approaching, I thought it would be fitting to turn to the very recent past to make sense of the year-long “celebration” that’s about to end: Canada 150.

Official logo for Canada 150. Source. 

The Government of Canada has been planning Canada 150 for years as a celebration of the 150-year anniversary of Canadian confederation. From the very beginning of this project, however, many communities in Canada have rejected this celebratory narrative of Canadian history. The Government of Canada includes reconciliation with Indigenous peoples as one of the themes of Canada 150, but the celebration of Confederation is at odds with most Indigenous peoples’ experience. Indigenous peoples have lived in “Canada” for hundreds of years, so this year marks 150 years of colonial persecution, not nationhood.

Tweet from the artist who designed Colonialism 150 logo, a response to Canada 150. Source.

Where do museums fit into this Canada 150 narrative? Over the past year museums across the country have hosted exhibits that critically reflect on Canada 150. For many curators, artists, and creators, museums have provided a space to stage a counter-narrative and incorporate non-celebratory perspectives on the 150-year anniversary of Confederation. Since there have been so many fantastic exhibits that reflect on Canada 150, for my last Greatest Hits post I have included not one, but three Musings posts, all of which reflect on exhibits that challenge Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration.


Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience 

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in front of the Fathers of Confederation. The Daddies, Kent Monkman, 2016. Collection of Christine Armstrong and Irfhan Rawji. Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

In February, Sadie MacDonald reviewed the Art Museum at University of Toronto’s exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience. The exhibit was on display at the Art Museum from January until March 2017 and is slated to tour museums throughout Canada until 2020. Kent Monkman organized the exhibit, which spanned 300 years and included hundreds of works. I used the word “organized” because Monkman played the role of creator, artist, and curator in this exhibit as several of his own paintings, dioramas, and other pieces were included, but he also put these objects in dialogue with pieces from museums across Canada. I had to visit the exhibit four times to completely take in the exhibit’s objects and text. Sadie’s review of the exhibit immediately picks up on the fact that Monkman organized a narrative that responds to Canada 150 by exploring the Indigenous experience with colonizers that began long before 1867. Even the timeline in the exhibit is a commentary on Canada 150, as Monkman cleverly begins his narrative 150 years before confederation in 1717. Monkman uses the museum as a stage for his narrative that contests Confederation as the beginning of life in Canada.


Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art

Buffalo Seed by Jane Ash Poitras. Photo courtesy of Natania Sherman. Source.

In March, former Musings Editor-in-Chief Natania Sherman reviewed a display at the ROM entitled Jane Ash Poitras: New Acquisitions of Contemporary First Nations Art. Unlike Monkman’s exhibit which spanned centuries and included numerous works, the display Natania reviewed was extremely small in scale. The display included four new acquisitions by the Indigenous artist, Jane Ash Poitras, and while this form of display is common, Natania examined how the works were positioned to stage an anti-colonial dialogue. Poitras paintings feature colonial symbols, like the Hudson’s Bay stripes, in dialogue with symbols of traditional Indigenous knowledge. The paintings themselves were staged next to objects like a school desk and a basket to gather herbs to create a dialogue between the art and the ethnographic objects in the ROM collection. Natania’s thoughtful review of a small exhibit proves that there are many ways to challenge Canada 150 narratives in museums.


Witness Blanket

An unknown boy in from of the Chesterfield Inlet Residential School (top). Photo courtesy of Sadie MacDonald. Source.

For the final exhibit review I’m including in my Canada 150 retrospective, we’re returning to Sadie but leaving Toronto. In June, Sadie reviewed Witness Blanket after visiting the exhibit at Museum London. The exhibit has been touring Canada since 2015, and currently the exhibit is slated to continue touring the country until 2021. The exhibit is composed of 887 artifacts from residential school survivors, which were collected by Carey Newman, a Kwagiulth sculptor and carver. Together, the hundreds of pieces create a patchwork of lost narratives from survivors of the schools, and in the process hundreds of narratives of loss and pain emerge. Sadie’s review examines the power of these objects curated together, both as a way for residential school survivors to heal and remember, but she also examines the power of this exhibit for the non-Indigenous population of Canada. The exhibit may have begun touring two years before Canada 150 celebrations began, but the powerful counter-narratives take on another layer of significance when remembering confederation. 

I tried to provide a brief snapshot of some of the important, challenging, and brave exhibits that have responded to Canada 150. If you have the time please read the amazing reviews of each exhibit! The exhibits take different approaches to staging a counter-narrative in the museum, from a small display of new acquisitions, to creating a dialogue between artifacts and contemporary art, to creating a collage of objects of trauma. These counter-narratives in museums are likely to continue for years to come, especially with many of these exhibits touring years into the future. Museums may help shift the legacy of Canada 150 from a celebration of nationhood to a rejection of colonial glory.

THE SCREAM AND THE SWING, SUBJUGATION AND STRENGTH: SHAME AND PREJUDICE: A STORY OF RESILIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ART MUSEUM

EXHIBITION REVIEW

BY: SADIE MACDONALD

Emily Welsh mentioned Art Museum at the University of Toronto's latest exhibit Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience in a January "What’s Happening Wednesday" column, so here I am to tell you just what is happening in this exhibition, and to convince you to see it if you haven't already…  because really, you ought to see it.

Kent Monkman, a Canadian artist of Cree and Irish heritage and a member of the Fish River band of Northern Manitoba, is the mastermind behind this exhibition. Created as a “Canada 150” project, Shame and Prejudice portrays Indigenous experiences of the past 150 years. These stories of devastation and deliberate destruction by the Canadian state, and the “resiliency and strength” of the Indigenous people who withstood it, are influenced by Monkman’s personal experiences and told in memoir format by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in front of the Fathers of Confederation. The Daddies, Kent Monkman, 2016. Collection of Christine Armstrong and Irfhan Rawji. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald

Miss Chief is an alter-ego created by Monkman, and he has often dressed as her and depicted her in his paintings. With her flamboyant poses, high heels, and, often, a whip in hand, she uses sexuality and campy humour to make a point. Miss Chief is a symbol of Monkman’s Two-Spirit identity and a representation of Indigenous empowerment against colonial control. As Monkman puts it, Miss Chief “embodies the flawed and playful trickster spirit, teasing out the truths behind false histories and cruel experiences.” In this exhibition, she is the narrator and frequently a subject as she recalls Indigenous experiences of Canada.

The exhibition is organized by sections according to themes such as “STARVATION,” “INCARCERATION,” and “URBAN REZ,” though those themes are not numbered in chronological order. Works include installations and acrylic paintings by Monkman as well as historical paintings, documents, and other objects, which create a sense of reiteration and juxtaposition. For example, one room has historical works such as period paintings of John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier, a reproduction of Treaty 7, and Pîhtokahanapiwiyin's moccasins, which are situated alongside Monkman’s paintings The Subjugation of Truth and A Country Wife. The historical and modern styles appear to blend seamlessly at first glance, but a closer look at The Subjugation of Truth reveals anachronistic participants from the government, clergy, and RCMP forcing a grim-faced Pîhtokahanapiwiyin and Mistahimaskwa to sign a treaty; in A Country Wife, mascara runs from the eyes of Macdonald’s wife.

A wall in the "WARDS OF THE STATE / THE INDIAN PROBLEM" section of the exhibition. Kent Monkman's The Subjugation of Truth, 2016, is shown in the middle. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald. 

Monkman’s paintings are large, making close inspection necessary. Viewers are able to get close to the art, and the details are then slowly yet startlingly revealed. Monkman’s immense landscapes are evocative of the romantic ideal of the sublime and pastoral scenes in nineteenth-century European art. He employs the characteristics of Western art as well as direct references to specific works, such as The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. These trappings are ultimately subverted by the details within.

Left: Le Petit déjeuner sur l'herbe, Kent Monkman, 2014. Right: Bad Medicine, Kent Monkman, 2014. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald.

Bad Medicine, the painting with the bears shown above to the right, has some disturbing details upon closer glance.

Detail, Bad Medicine, Kent Monkman, 2014. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald.

Here is a close-up of one such detail. A Picasso-esque woman is sprawled on the ground as a bear towers over her, the contents of her purse spilling onto the sidewalk. Among the contents are bear repellent, a container of pills, and a bottle of alcohol.

Starvation Plates, Kent Monkman, 2017. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald

Monkman bluntly explores the uncomfortable and unjust history of Canadian colonization. This table is in one of the last rooms of the exhibition. Under glass is a setting of European fine dining on top of commemorative plates, while the end of the table is uncovered and littered with animal bones. Here, plates created by Monkman depict photographs of the mass killing of buffalo. This installation shows that the spoils of colonialism created a feast for white Canadian colonizers, while their extermination of the plains buffalo left Indigenous people with scraps – and no seat at the table.

In a series of raw and painful remembrances, I found the most heartbreaking segment to be “FORCIBLE TRANSFER OF CHILDREN”, which focuses on the removal of Indigenous children under the residential school system. This section has its own room within the gallery. Dominating the room is a large painting entitled The Scream, which depicts Indigenous children being taken away by members of the clergy and the RCMP while their mothers resist and desperately fight to hold onto their children. Historical cradleboard baby carriers line the wall on either side of the painting, though some spaces on the wall are taken up by industrial-looking skeletons of baby carriers, or chalk outlines in place of a carrier. Even Miss Chief’s interpretive panel can’t bear to go into detail here: “The pain is too deep.”

The Scream, Kent Monkman, 2016. Photo Credit: Sadie MacDonald.

Yet through such pain, Indigenous strength shines through in the exhibition. Reminders of the determined courage and endurance of Indigenous people create a narrative thread throughout Miss Chief Eagle Testickle’s memoirs. She herself appears often as a symbol of reclamation and a rallying cry to her people. As she puts it: “The others cannot see our magic, they try to tell us it is not there, but they do not understand the power of Miss Chief and they sorely underestimate the resilience of our people.”

Shame and Prejudice is uninhibited, unsettling, and utterly remarkable. Monkman’s art provides a voice that is very much needed during our Canada 150 celebrations this year. Shame and Prejudice will be at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto until March 5 and will then go on tour around Canada (including to my home province at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia!). If you get the chance to see it, please do.