Postmodern Parody A Political Strategy in Contemporary Canadian Native Art Allan J. Ryan here is @ fecling of momentum moving [Pie este smn present time—a gathering awareness of empower- iment sweeping over the northem landscape like an ancien spirit, penetrating the national consciousness. A unique set of historical circumstances and some hard-fought battles in the last few years have given aboriginal peoples and issues a high profile in the media and in the halls of government. Rarely a day goes by when Native concems—about the ‘environment, land ttle, sovereignty, or self-determination— arc not featured on the nightly news. And politicians, finally, appear ready to take such concerns seriously and begin ‘moving toward resolving past injustice and present inequity: ‘Over the past fifteen years, many of these concerns hhave been given visual form by professionally trained Native artists who have employed a strongelement of irony to address the issues. While none, I suspect, would choose to be charac " ized as an “ironic” artist—irony being but one of their sny tools—this quality nevertheless informs many oftheir ‘most compelling and politically pointed works. Tt provides the critical edge. In 1969, in his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, Vine Deloria encouraged scholars to ex- amine irony, along wit satire, to gain a hetter understanding ‘of te collective psyehe and valves of Native Americans." Few people, it seems, took his suggestion seriously, In all fair nes, irony ean be an elusive element—hard to pin down, not wily defined.? This may be why it has seldom been the major focus of investigation in the visual arts, especially the visual arts of Native people, and especially the contemporary. work of Canadian Native artists.* ‘One possible way of approaching the current work is through the potentially treacherous minefield of postmodern ism. Irony is. recognized attribute of postmodernism, whose best works, according to the architect Charles Jencks, are “eharacteristieally double-coded and ironic, making a fea- ture of the wide choice, confliet and discon ity of tradi- tions, because this heterogeneity most clearly captures our plurals * But are these Native artists truly postmodern? Perhaps; although most of them have more on their minds than “capturing our pluralism.” Much more relevant to the present task is Linda Hutcheon ' concept of postmodernism, in which the primary function of irony is a critical reworking of history, best accomplished through creative interation with parody.* Par- critical distance which at the very heart of similarity.”® Lrony becomes parody’s chief rhetorical strat ‘ody is now defined as “repetition wi allows ironic signalling of differene ey, and “eri inition. Because it “seems to offer a perspective on the present and the past whieh allows an artist to speak fo a discourse cal distance” becames the critical aspect of from within it, but without being totally recuperated by i parody appears to have become the favored mode of expres- sion ofthe “ex-centric,” orthose marginalized by a dominant ideology. The art of the ex-centric questions from the edge. And itis always a critical edge. ‘Whether we choose to regard the artists whose work is addressed here as postmodem, postcolonial, ex-centrie, neo-Native, or something else altogether is not the point. What 1 would like to demonstrate is a method of reading mnporary Native art through the application ofa theory of parody that reveals the significant political agenda, Analysis ‘of a much larger sampling of work than that represented here, suggests four overlapping themes: the reformulation of self= of history from a Native perspective the contesting of symbols of authority and control, and the ad- dressing of global issues or placing of local concems in a lobal context. Perhaps the most complex theme, and that having the most impact on the other three, is that of self- identity and self-representation identity, the revi Many of the images of Native people that proliferate in the popular media and punetuate the writing of serious sebolars date from the last century, the work of munnerous and photographers who endeavored to cap= the colorful players in what was perceived to be a quickly passing cultural parade. In recent years this body of imagery has frequently been criticized for being less a visual document than a collective Euro-American exercise in creative h frontier painters ture for poste oricizing—something Native people have known all along. Contemporary Native artists know these images well and have become skilled at re-presenting them ART JOURNAL1 Bll Powlss, Indian’ Summer 1986, acy on canvas, 46% 38 inch. Private collection. in ironie and humorous fashion to reveal how suc ceptions have hindered cross-cultural understanding, ‘A case in point is the wonderfully whimsical Indians Summer (fig. 1), by the Grand River Mohawk artist Bill and then wickedly subverts the ro- ‘manticized and highly conventionalized depictions of the “Naked Savage/Noble Warrior” (or is it the “Noble Savage/ Naked Warrior?) The subversion is particularly thorough, Powless, which recall with many hallmarks of heroic Indian portraiture viciously undercut and inverted: The proud warrior’s physique has ballooned to immense, almost obscene, proportions; the fa- miliar leather loincleth has become a pair of red bikini briefs; the telltale beaded headband is now a trendy yuppie sweatband; and the flowing feathered headdress, an absurd umbrella beanie, its single floating feather a modern-day cliché, Gone, but not forgotten, are the symbols of status and nilitary prowess—the pipestem, the fan, the decorated hatchet. In their stead is a vaguely phallic summer confec- tion, Melting. Despite such comic turns and transformations, a basic human dignity, and even “nobility,” still abide Divested of all manner of exotic trappings, this self-satisfied image of contemporary reality gently confounds and ulti~ ‘mately demolishes romantic fantasy. Where Povless plays against the double stereotype of “Naked Savage/Noble Warriot” to confound the viewer gently, the Ojibway artist Carl Beam aggressively embraces it to ‘confront the viewer actively. In Self-Portrait in My Christian Dior Bathing Suit fig. 2), Beam reclaims this image with a vengeance by imbuing it with his own brooding persona and considerable bravado.? Stripping down to his sleek “de- signes” trunks, in a mocking gesture that calls attention to mainstream society's preoccupation with celebrity, the artist adopts @ defiant warrio’s stance. His angry eyes engage the viewer directly. He exudes absolute confidence. It is this overt display of confidence, this fierce affirmation of self worth and personal experience—reinforced in the handwrit- text superimposed on the figure—that distinguishes this piece from the many generic depictions of Native people Beam invokes."? Beam challenges the viewer to acknowledge not only the individuality and individual experience of the artist, but also, by extension, that ofall aboriginal people. It allenge. needs saying th isa formidable Tthardl people have always included images of women variably the creation of white men."! A distaff counterpoint to the double stereotype addressed by Powless and Beam would be the twin portrayals of mabe “Indian Princess” and nurtur- generic depictions of Native almost in- ing “Earth Mother.” Although these are commonly conceived as two separate entities, the Mohawk artist Shelley Niro ‘ic. 2 Cal Beam, el ort n My Chistian Dir Bathing Sut, 190, wrereaon 4026 inches vate caletion,Fc 3 Shelley Niro, The Reel, 1987, hand-tnteablace-andowhite Photograph, 033M inches Collection ofthe arts, skilfully combines and undermines both images at once in The Rebel (fig. 3), a hand-tinted photograph of her mother, posing coquettishly atop the trunk of the family car, which bears the name RE EL! Native women, especially those in their middle years, have rarely been portrayed so playfully, with such candor, exhibiting such comic sensibi carefree confidence. It may well take a Mohawk wom photograph a Mohawk woman. It may be easier, 10, if youre family." Niro is one of a growing number of Native women or such, artists combating historic misrepresentations by creating, new, highly personalized images that reflect more accurately the full range of female experience within the Native ‘community The Rebel is particularly memorable and engaging for its ability to achieve critical distance on a number of levels. Nat only does itor refreshingly redefined image of Native Ny delicious parody of the way in female sexuality is used by the media to sell “fast toys womanhood, itis an espec whi to big boys,” with all the attendant connotations of freedom and fantasy that such sexual/material associations suggest. It can also be seen as contesting mainstream society's whole notion of beauty, and mainstream values in general. Viewed in this light, The Rebel symbolizes « completely alternative perspective on cultural practice. It is a playfully seductive image, deliberately appealing, but quietly rebellious on many fronts. It is aptly titled The Cree artist Jane Ash Poitra image of Native women in an entirely different way, as part of reconstitutes the a larger project that aims to capture the vitality of life on the northern Alberta reserve of Fort Chipewyan, where she was born, In “Fort Chipewyan Breakfast Club,” a series of seven- teen paintings commissioned to complement an exhibition of ‘ethnographic artifacts, Poitras recalls, then vigorously re- vitalizes familiar archival images of anonymous Indian families huddled about makeshift dwellings in a timeless, unchanging locale." She puts these archaic images to rest for good. There is nothing statie or unchanging about her work. With quick strokes of vibrant color, she charges both the people and the rugged landscape with a restless energy This is definitely an active community. Its members are busily involved in a umber of important pursuits, from chopping wood to curing fish and feeding stray dogs. Eve those individuals who do cluster about the open doorways to gaze out at the viewer seem only to have paused mom nail Poiteas captures these intimate moments on canvas ina series of'wa 1 vignettes that offer not only a rare glimpse of commu- nity life, but, perhaps more important, convey something of the cultural dynamics that account for the community's con- tinued existence. Poitras, however, is not content merely to rehabilitate stilted archival wages. In a mischievous turn that reveals a ‘most impudent Trickster personality, she adds an unexpected critical edge by giving the paintings ironic titles that satirize white society's custom of ins tionalizing leisure activ ities,19 Titles such as Fort Chip Dog Show (fi. 4), Fort Chip Canoe Club, Fort Chip Sewing Club, Fort Chip Lonely Hearts Club, and Fort Chip Keg Party make it difficult to consider the images without acknowledging, with some uneasiness, their more affluent counterparts in the dominant society. By wryly polticizing her work, Poitras has firmly anchored the exhibition in present-day reality. When the exhibition opened at the Provincial Museum of Alberta in 1988, the pointed humor was not lost on the general publie, who, according, to Poitras, loved it.!° The curator who commissioned the work, however, was not amused.” Are they eves? In recent years museum curators have increasingly ccome under fire from Native groups, not only for the way in which aboriginal peoples have been depicted as the exotic ther in galleries of ethnology, but also for the damaging, effects of government-sanctioned collection policies. One of the most damning indictments of such policies is the Blood artist Joane Cardi Schubert's Preservation of a Species— Warshirt Series.™® The six pieces in this series were inspired by a visit to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, where the artist viewed historic garments from the Northern fic. 4 ane Ash Pots, Fort Chip Dog Show rom the "Fort Chipewyan ‘reakfat lab” series 900, len paper 22>30 Inches. hata election