The Portrait is NOT an Indian

The exhibition explores the relationship between nineteenth-century performing “Indians” and contemporary performance art. Indigenous artists have taken up this nineteenth-century history to create self-representations in photography, performance, video, and installation that challenge ideas of normative and static identity. The artists turn to a range of aesthetic strategies, including re-enactment, remixing, memorialization, mimicry, parody, masquerade, and portraiture, underscoring the interdisciplinary nature of Indigenous art.

Speakers and performers include: Demian DinéYahzi’, Alan Michelson, Kent Monkman, Wanda Nanibush, Joseph Pierce, Jolene Rickard, and others. More information to follow here.

This event takes place in Proshansky Auditorium at the CUNY Gradatue Cetner and is free and open to the public. Please register to attend.

This event is co-sponsored by The James Gallery and the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Independent Curators International.
*See featured images and artist credits below.

Image credit: Kent Monkman, The Emergence of a Legend (2006)

Image credit: Cara Romero, TV Indians, 2017. Inkjet print. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Host or Publisher The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY