July 14, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA July 14, 2000 |
| A new book on Native art challenges media stereotypesof the “stoic Indian”
Humour, politics, and pop culture are topics of Native art these days, says Dr. Allan Ryan, a UVic scholar of Native studies, anthropology, and history in art. Ryan summarizes 12 years of academic and real-life study in his new book The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art — recently the winner of an American Book Award. With 100 colour and 60 black and white images, the book is a visual lesson in Native culture and history. “What you need to learn is in these images,” says Ryan. Also included are interviews with elders, museum curators, artists, and art historians. The unifying theme that draws this chorus of voices together is trademark Native humour: puns, paradox, and irony. For example, in Gerald McMaster’s acrylic and oil pastel Trick or Treaty, Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, wears Joker-like paint around his mouth. “Have I got an Act for you,” the figure says. In Jim Logan’s Let Us Compare Miracles, the Christian Saint Sebastian is painted as a dying Native wounded by arrows. The background is a beer bottle label. Ryan explains Logan’s metaphor: “Just as Saint Sebastian made a miraculous recovery from wounds inflicted for his spiritual beliefs, so too Native people are beginning to recover from wounds incurred over a century of alcohol abuse.” The following are lyrics from songwriter Shingoose’s It’s Hard to Be Traditional: “What do you get when you rub two sticks? / Well, you get a raging fire / But it’s just as easy to flick your Bic / And nobody would be the wiser.” “The media stereotype of Native people,” says Ryan, “is that they don’t have a sense of humour. There’s the image of the ‘stoic Indian.’ The Trickster Shift reveals this sense of humour, which gives the Native stereotype a much-needed dimension of humanity.” The theme of humour is woven around the Trickster, the playful, central figure in Native spirituality, who represents the spiritual health of the Native people. In The Trickster Shift, the Native artist becomes the Trickster, combining irony, pun, and paradox with strong messages about Native life and history. It’s not surprising that humour is the medium for these messages. Ryan quotes Anton Obrdlik, who writes, “The purest type of ironical humour is born out of sad experiences accompanied by grief and sorrow.” One colour image is of Dominus Vobiscum, by Ron Noganosh. It is a rosary with Christ on a cross, backed by red velvet. Christ is a GI Joe doll. The necklace is made of .44 magnum bullets and .22 casings. The piece suggests the horrors of residential schools, where similar rosaries hung on the walls. Ryan asks, “How do we deal with a residential school history? Humour is a way of diffusing the pain. It’s a part of healing.” Ryan hopes that The Trickster Shift will be read “within both Native communities, to let them see how they’re being represented by their artists, and non-Native communities, to sensitize them to the realities of Native culture.” “[The book] has the power to affect how people relate to each other,” says Ryan. “Whoever opens this book is going to learn about tolerance, cultural sensitivity, and appreciation for fine art.” The Trickster Shift (UBC Press, $65) is available in bookstores. View the book’s Web site at <www.trickstershift.com> for more information.
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by Heather Walker
Samples from The Trickster Shift: left, “Trick or Treaty,” in which Sir John A. Macdonald is depicted as a dishevelled joker with a greasepaint smile. Above right, a sculpture entitled “The Same Old Shit” by Ron Noganosh (1990) portrays government paternalism and the withholding of funds from Native bands, symbolized by the coins in the figure’s left hand, kept behind his back.