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RedditYou've been called "one of the most dangerous Indians alive." What are you trying to say?
Well, at times the message can be potent. One of my subjects is with ethnic identity—how people perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. Not everybody can talk about that, so I guess that makes me a dangerous character.
Why do you make yourself the subject of your art?
Because I know myself better than I know anything else. How do you talk about things like intercultural identity. Do you talk about it in third person? If you sacrifice yourself, so to speak, then it becomes much more dynamic. I like to think that in my work I'm talking about something I know because I've lived it, as opposed to something that I read about.
I was looking at work that I hadn't been involved with. There was a gap there that I filled rather quickly when I looked around at myself, my family, my tribe, my community and my reservation. It was all there, I didn't have to go anywhere for subject matter. I've been at this 30 years and I have probably another—I don't know how many years—to be done because it's there, it just needs to be spoken to. That's a message for younger artists.
Could you give an example of one of your pieces and how it deals with ethnic identity and perception?
I had long looked at representation of our peoples in museums and they all dwelled in the past. They were one—sided. We were simply objects among bones, bones among objects, and then signed and sealed with a date. In that framework you really couldn't talk about joy, intelligence, humor, or anything that I know makes up our people.
In "The Artifact Piece" I became the Indian and lied in state as an exhibit along with my personal objects. That hit a nerve and spoke loud both in Indian country, the art world and the frontier of anthropology.
The installation took objects that were representational of a modern Indian, which happened to be me, collecting my memorabilia such as my degree, my divorce papers, photos, record albums, cassettes, college mementos. It told a story about a man who was in college in the 60s, but this man happened to be native, and that was the twist on it.
What role does the audience play?
What I like about installations is that the audience participates. They walk around, they look, they become part of it. As the artist you know how you can make them stop, you know when you can make them go to this corner because that's how you lay it out.
I involve the audience. People give you control of their imagination. I can have them outraged one moment and crying the next. That's the power the audience gives you. It's knowing that and knowing how to use it effectively.
I guess the statement is that I'm not up here to entertain, though I can be damn entertaining. I'm here to teach you.
Comments
AS an unlisted choctaw-chickasaw, I'm asking what tribe does he represent? I'd love to see his show.
Posted by Jacquelyn R Schoening on August 20,2008 | 12:48PM
I'd love to walk on a part or parts of the great wall. Been watching the olympics from Beijing every evening. Thank you, Smithsonian. Also have some quetions about the movement of the earth. In what direction does the earth orbit around the sun? The eart orbits eastward on its axis every 24 hours, but does its thrust around the sun go forward in an easterly or westerly direction?
Posted by Jacquelyn R. Schoening on August 20,2008 | 12:53PM