Art & Apartheid

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A new Carl Beam show raises questions about the place of aboriginal art in the National Gallery
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By Paul Gessell, The Ottawa Citizen published on October 21, 2010
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'The North American Iceberg', © Carl Beam
Photography: Ottawa Citizen archives /Click on image to Enlarge/
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>>> Carl Beam: The Poetics of Being (Exhibition)
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When & where: At the National Gallery until Jan. 16th 2011
Information: Visit www.gallery.ca or phone 613-990-1985
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Diana Nemiroff went shopping in 1986. At the time, she was curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Canada. She had decided it was time to start acquiring contemporary aboriginal art.
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In Toronto, Nemiroff spied a giant mixed-media work by Carl Beam called The North American Iceberg. Using acrylic, photo-serigraph and graphite, the artist had applied text and historical photographic images of aboriginal people to a sheet of plexiglass approximately two metres by four metres. The result was a bold statement about First Nations past and present.
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"I looked at the work and thought, 'Boy, this big, ambitious work, this really serious piece, has a lot to say to me and other people,' " recalls Nemiroff, now director of the Carleton University Art Gallery.
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The North American Iceberg became the first contemporary aboriginal artwork "self-consciously" purchased by the gallery, which had previously deemed First Nations art the concern of such ethno-cultural institutions as the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
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Twenty-four years after that acquisition, the gallery is set Oct. 22 to launch in Ottawa an internationally touring solo exhibition of 50 works by Beam in various media, including paintings, photography and ceramics. The show, Carl Beam: The Poetics of Being, comes five years after the artist's death. The North American Iceberg, Columbus Chronicles, Burying the Ruler and some other less famous works are included.
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So, how should we view Iceberg today? Is it a symbol of the end of art apartheid at the National Gallery or merely the starting point for a new form of art apartheid?
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Yes, the National Gallery now acquires contemporary works from many aboriginal artists and the Beam show is the fourth major solo exhibition by a First Nations artist since 2006, when Norval Morrisseau became the first.
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But aboriginal art still remains apart, with its own curator in charge of exhibitions and acquisitions. There is no Québécois curator nor English-Canadian curator nor immigrant art curator. So why a special category for aboriginals? Can not Carl Beam, Daphne Odjig, Alex Janvier and other aboriginal artists be considered "Canadian" artists and compete with other "Canadian" artists when the National Gallery goes hunting for great art for its collection and exhibitions?
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Greg Hill is the gallery's indigenous art curator and an aboriginal artist himself. He concedes that, in an ideal world, curators of Canadian contemporary and historical art would ensure aboriginal art was properly represented in the gallery. But we do not live in an ideal world.
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"With contemporary art we know the results of not having a curator that focuses on this area," says Hill. "Carl Beam is an example of that. It was the first self-conscious purchase of a work by an aboriginal artist for the contemporary art collection. It happened in 1986. So, what happened before that? There was a lot of inactivity."
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Ironically, the title for The North American Iceberg constituted a protest against the exclusion of aboriginal art from Canada's major art galleries. In 1984, the Art Gallery of Ontario had mounted an exhibition of contemporary German and Italian contemporary art called The European Iceberg. Aboriginal artists were incensed that, once again, they were overlooked.
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Beam, originally from Manitoulan Island, had mixed emotions about the gallery's purchase of his Iceberg.
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"I realized that when they bought my work it wasn't from Carl the artist but from Carl the Indian," Beam said in 1994. "At the time, I felt honoured, but now I know that I was used politically -- Indian art that's made as Indian is racially motivated and I just can't do that. My work is not made for Indian people but for thinking people."
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Beam's art was undeniably influenced by his Anishnaabe heritage. But his concerns over the environment, the evils of science and clashing cultures were universal. And while images of First Nations people populated his art, they are accompanied by such diverse historical figures as Holocaust victim Anne Frank, American celebrity Jennifer Lopez and former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
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"The show isn't about Carl Beam, the Indian artist," says Hill. "It's about Carl Beam and all of what he is and how he expresses things, which touches on aboriginal history and European history. He considered himself a citizen of the world."
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In the exhibition catalogue, Hill calls Beam a "post-Indian artist" because of his concerns with "larger world issues."
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Nevertheless, Beam's work is still handled by the indigenous curator, not the gallery's chief contemporary art curator.
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Some day, Hill says, the gallery will no longer need a curator of indigenous art. But that day has not yet arrived.
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© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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>>> Reference post:
- Great Anishinaabe/Woodland Artists (Part XII),
- The exhibition that ended institutionalized discrimination against First Nations art at the National Gallery of Canada &
- Daphne Odjig's Retrospective Exhibition at National Gallery of Canada Ends Today.
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