EXILE ON MAIN STREET: 

Home of the Brave (Conclusion) 

The big museums, together with the government itself in the United States and Canada, are key operators in the success or failure of Indian artists. They are playing a central role today in the development of contemporary Indian art -- a great irony since many are still in the process of properly relocating the tens of thousands of human remains in their collections, along with associated funerary objects. I bring this up not to run another guilt trip, since I've heard enough of those to last several lifetimes, but because I find it interesting that the same museums that carried out that ghoulish work of not so long ago, work that included scientific studies that proved the inferiority of the red people, now rush to embrace the awesome accomplishments of this previously inferior race. A recent fundraising letter for the Smithsonian Institution's new Museum of the American Indian in Washington speculates that Indian astronomy was so advanced that it can perhaps aid in the exploration of Mars. This is something. Just in the space of a few decades they go from collecting our bones to saying we're smarter than NASA! The gorgeous catalog for the recent Indigena show, sponsored by the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, 1992) is physical evidence of how much influence these institutions have in the production of art and criticism. In fact, this show overlapped with "Land, Spirit, Power" (The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1992), another major exhibition of contemporary art by North American Native artists. It's an interesting moment. One might even argue that a Native artist with talent has as good a shot at a viable career than white artists with similar ability -- perhaps even a better.  

Yet despite this new and long overdue attention, I believe making Indian art is a vocation fraught with danger, in some ways just as dangerous as those who participated in Sun Dances and peyote ceremonies when they were outlawed not so long ago. We can argue that we are part of an unbroken circle extending across half a millennium, but it's foolish to deny that in the here and now we exist as doubly marginalized cultural workers in a capitalist system. We know that our audience will be overwhelmingly non-Indian. We know our work might be extravagantly praised and at the same time be patronized and ignored in the circles where art matters. As artists, we need dialogue and criticism to improve our work, yet must deal with the weird politics of not being simply artists, but Indian artists.  

Even the most adventurous contemporary Indian artist faces the prospect of a lifetime of Indian-only shows. Even fiercely intelligent, complex Indian art-- without a reassuring eagle or buffalo in sight -- runs the risk of becoming another form of exotic souvenirs. Indian artists who choose to participate in the world of professional art critics and curators and museums, to dance with the prospect of fame and fortune must face these contradictions head on if they expect to survive with a shred of integrity. Ours is the first generation to have enough writers and artists achieving success in the dominant culture to make up a crowd. And our backgrounds are often not so different than many other artists, as a glance through the recent Indigena catalog will show. Most Native artists went to university, have formal art school training, and professionally are not so different than their non-Native peers. But this does not mean we are the same, nor that we don't have something unique and valuable to offer. Silence about our own complicated histories supports the colonizer's idea that the only real Indians are full-blooded, from a reservation, speak their language, and practice the religion of their ancestors. Even though this represents a small number of us as a whole, and fits few or none of us plying the trades of artist, or writer, or activist, we often consciously and unconsciously try to play this part drilled into us by the same Hollywood movies non-Indians get their ideas from.  

The process of incorporating traditional methods and world-views into a form of expression that simply didn't exist a few centuries ago, a few lifetimes, really, is a monumental task that requires the greatest honesty and focused intelligence about our history and future as a people. It requires a foregounded knowledge that virtually every aspect of being Indian in North America has been highly politicized, from the obvious examples of genocide and the deliberate destruction of language and religious practices. It means understanding that Indian culture is a valuable commodity bought and sold much like any other commodity.  

For me, too much of Indian art settles for the expected protest, and the comforting, pastoral images that for the vast majority of us originate exactly the same place as for non-Indians. Our pre-determined role is to remain within the images, of ecology, of anger, of easy celebration. There are many reasons the old myths are comforting and safe. Many Indian folks and our so-called friends in the Wannabee Tribe make a pretty good living dispensing jukebox spiritualism and environmental teachings. They believe being Indian means trying to be like the imaginary Seattle. History lessons from our recent past are irrelevant to the new Indian thought police, who prefer endless metaphysics on the essentially unknowable perfection of a past that has little relation to their own lives. A cultural politics that chooses European images over the real history of our people is a politics that encourages the commodification of distorted, invented Indian values. It's a politics that insists Indians produce passbooks to make art.  

These constructs lead into a box canyon from a John Ford western, this idea of the Noble Savage. Artists can help lead us out, by refusing to play the assigned role and demanding an honesty in their own work and that of others that truly honors the outrageous story of our continued existence. This new generation must dare for something bolder. For those willing to leave behind the cheap, played out clichés a great project awaits. It is nothing less than a reclamation of our common history of surviving the unparalleled disaster of European contact and the creation of something new and dynamic from the ashes.  

Our survival against desperate odds is worthy of a celebration, one that embraces every aspect of our bizarre and fantastic lives, the tremendous sacrifices made on our behalf by our parents and grandparents and their parents. Dressing up, intellectually or literally, to someone else's idea of who we are insults that rich tradition of struggle and resistance, and turns our party into someone else's freak show, with us as the entertainment.  

Not even Seattle talked like Seattle. Black Elk was not so different than our own goofy, imperfect uncles and grandfathers. The only reason Nick and Sitting Bull weren't playing Nintendo on the ship to Europe with Buffalo Bill is because it wasn't invented yet. Only when we recognize that our own individual, crazy personal histories, like those of every other Indian person of this century, are a tumble of extraordinary contradictions, can we begin making sense of lives.  

Geronimo's Cadillac is waiting, and if we want, it can be a hell of a ride. 
 
© Paul Chaat Smith,1994
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