Kent Monkman

Monkman's work often references and reconfigures forms from 19th-century White American painters, particularly George Catlin and the Western landscape painters. For example, his 2006 Trappers of Men takes an 1868 landscape by Albert Bierstadt, but portrays the scene at midday – rejecting Bierstadt's sunset original – and replaces Bierstadt's animals with perplexed white individuals from American art and political history, a Lakota historian, and Monkman's two-spirited alter-ego.[17]

Since Monkman uses the colonizers' own methodologies by use of language and imagery, "by choosing to speak, Monkman chooses to participate in using the Master's language, but his speech subverts rather than upholds the paradigm of oppression".[14]^: 40 "The artist uses close re-creation of earlier artworks as an opportunity for ironic, often humorous representation of historical attitudes towards First Nations culture, attitudes that persist today".[1]^: 1 He is criticized for using mimicry within his painting practise, this method of subversion requires him to still participate within an imperialist discourse as opposed to his performance practise which is considered to be more successful, but he "effect[s] change on a systematic level, to change the signification of the language of oppression, even the minority artist must appeal to a mainstream audience".[14]^: 40 "Monkman's work might be considered controversial to some, especially in Alberta, where traditional images of the Old West are held near and dear to the heart, but Monkman hopes it helps Albertans see historic representations of colonization under a new light".[18]

Monkman adopts the Old Masters style of painting because he likes how the style expresses emotions like grief and longing through the body and facial expression.[8] He was particularly moved by Antonio Gisbert's Execution of Torrijos and his Companions on the Beach at Málaga (1888).[9] On a project beginning in 2017, Monkman and his team began working on a "protesters series" based on the Standing Rock protests where they combined photographs from the protest with classic battle scene paintings.[19] His team then had models pose for a photo shoot to remake and capture the classic style with modern subject; these photographs were then projected on large canvas, traced and base-painted by assistants before Monkman did his finishing touches.[19] Miss Chief's Wet Dream (2018), Monkman's first maritime-themed work and also his largest painting to date, is derived from two famous French Romantic paintings: The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19) by Théodore Géricault, and Christ on the Sea of Galilee (1854) by Eugène Delacroix. With its varied and inclusive array of Indigenous warriors and European conquerors, Miss Chief's Wet Dream reminds us of the origins of our longest-running conflict—the relationship between Indigenous peoples in Canada and the country's colonizers.[20]

Kent Monkman's painting Hanky Panky depicts the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, restrained and on all fours with his pants down as Monkman's alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, approaches him from behind holding up a red sex toy in the shape of praying hands.[21][22] Monkman generated controversy by suggesting that the rape scene was a consensual act, but later apologized for "any harm that was caused by the work".[23] According to Monkman, the painting was intended to highlight flaws in "the Canadian (in)justice system" and the victimization of Indigenous women, who experience violence and sexual assault at disproportionately higher rates than other women in Canada.[22] Hanky Panky was titled by Monkman to portray good humour as a reflection on the "nature of the character, the exuberant laughter of the Indigenous women and the trickery and deceit of each successive colonial government since Canadian Confederation."[24]

While some commentators focused on the controversy of depicting Trudeau as Monkman did, members of the Indigenous community offered critiques regarding the portrayal of sexual violence in the painting, specifically the notion that Indigenous women would participate and even enjoy the voyeuristic act of rape.[25][26] Historically, "Indigenous women and girls in Canada are disproportionately affected by violence."[27] Moreover, the way in which Monkman's work presents sexual violence incorrectly prioritizes the white-colonialist perspective, "fall[ing] in with a tradition of artists voicing the perspective of Indigenous groups that do not wholly belong to them."[26]

Earlier in his career, Monkman was particularly interested in the ways Indigeneity had been represented by 19th century European and American artists like George Catlin, Paul Kane, Albert Bierstadt, and many other Romantic painters. Artists like Catlin and Kane were self-proclaimed ethnographers and documentarians, with Indigenous peoples of Canada and the U.S being their main subjects of study. However, as Alla Myzelev articulates, artists like Catlin and Kane documented “highly idealized representations of Canadian [Indigenous] peoples as noble savages.”[34] According to Katherine Brooks, these depictions, which homogenized the peoples and the cultures from distinct Indigenous communities, also “sought to ‘freeze’ [Indigenous peoples] in these idealized, yet lost times...”[35] Monkman was also interested in the “subjective position of the artists who produce Western American wild frontier paintings”,[36] like the Group of Seven. According to scholar Braden Lee Scott, artists from this famous Canadian group “wanted to depict ‘pristine landscapes of Canada’ that were ‘void of reference to native peoples’.”[37]

In response to the “erasures of Indigenous histories”[37] presented in much classic romantic Western art, Monkman parodied famous pieces of art by Catlin, Kane, Bierstadt and artists from the Group of Seven, and incorporated Miss Chief into the remasterings of these pieces. Monkman's parodies of 19th century paintings, and his inclusion of Miss Chief in these works, “steadily erode the authority of the ‘originals’.”[31] Jonathan Katz argues that Monkman is not actually proving certain histories to be entirely false, as he evidently understands and believes in the colonization of the Americas, rather, that Monkman is concerned with the “telling of the past, as opposed to the past itself.”[30] Monkman claims that Miss Chief originated out of “needing someone within that time period”[3] (the settlement of Europeans in North America), and for someone to bear witness to Indigenous history prior to the arrival of settlers. As suggested by Kate and Linda Morris, Miss Chief's ability to time travel and shape-shift directly challenges narratives from Kane and Catlin which attempted to freeze Indigenous peoples and cultures in the past. By her very nature, Miss Chief “...refuses to be frozen in time.”[31]

Monkman claims that one of his biggest inspirations for creating Miss Chief was George Catlin's painting Dance to the Berdash, 1835-1837. The painting depicts a traditional Indigenous practice where Indigenous men perform a “ceremonial dance to celebrate a ‘Berdash’” (Berdash was the French word used to describe people who are now known as Two-Spirited). Catlin claimed that this traditional Indigenous custom, which he witnessed and painted, was “disgusting.”[38] In response to both the painting and Catlin's remarks about traditional Indigenous conceptions of gender and sexuality, Monkman was “prompted to incorporate a persona in his paintings who would embrace gender and sexuality, honouring the tradition of the two-spirit in Indigenous societies...”[3] Monkman also was inspired by Catlin's own practice of including himself in his work. Monkman “wanted to create an artistic persona that could rival that of Catlin.”[35]

While Miss Chief was incorporated into many of Monkman's works primarily as a tool to challenge historically dominant and homogenizing representations of Indigeneity in fine art, she also served an emotional purpose in allowing Monkman to cope with the often difficult topics he addresses in his pieces. As Monkman states, Miss Chief helps him “lighten how [he] treats sometimes very dark subject matter because [he's] looking at effectively a genocide.”[39]

The first of Monkman's work that Miss Chief is featured in is Portrait of The Artist as Hunter, 2002, which is an acrylic painting depicting Miss Chief hunting while riding bare-back on a White stallion. The painting's background is “the rolling landscape of the Great Plains...”,[40] and through this setting of the mid-U.S, and the depiction of buffalos running alongside Miss Chief, the painting attempts to mimic “...the ubiquitous nineteenth century image of the buffalo hunt...”[36] The painting is specifically based on John Mix Stanley’s painting Buffalo Hunt, 1845.[36] In Stanley's original painting, he appropriates “the image of the [Indigenous] male and presents him as a mysterious, exotic figure; the subject of romanticized notions of the Noble Savage...”[36] In mimicking Stanley's original work, Monkman reciprocates the act of falsely depicting certain cultures by “appropriating the Romantic Western genre”[36] and providing a similarly false historical narrative.

Monkman simultaneously appropriates and reclaims the settler-colonial depictions of the buffalo hunt through Miss Chief. The painting does not show buffalo being hunted, but rather focuses on Miss Chief who hunts the true object of the chase; that is the cowboy. The cowboy as the object of prey is not only indicated by the direction of Miss Chief's bow, but also, as Maurice Roland notes, the nakedness of the cowboy, as his exposed bottom is “a sign that he is to be dominated by his pursuant”, and his unbuttoned shirt suggests “his desirability and vulnerability to sexual contact.”[36] Miss Chief's is also adorned in a combination of twenty-first century high fashion as well as what was considered by settlers as ‘traditional Indigenous clothing’, such as traditional Indigenous headdresses. It is through the reversal of roles between the cowboy and Indigenous person, and Miss Chief's wearing of a headdress, which was a ceremonial article of clothing for many Indigenous nations and would not typically be worn during a hunt, that Monkman demonstrates Miss Chief's ability to confront the falsities within dominant settler-colonial historical narratives.[36] Given that this piece is Miss Chief's first appearance inn Monkman's work, her meaning and purpose as a powerful figure who ironically challenges settler-colonialism in the piece, ultimately sets the tone for the role that Miss Chief plays and the functions that she carries out in many of Monkman's later works.[36]

In creating a figure who could challenge false and problematic historical narratives of Indigeneity in Western fine art and historical documents, Monkman had to reinsert the existence of two-spirit identities into colonist histories.[30] Various and distinct conceptions of gender, which went beyond the binary of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, were central to the vitality and culture of Indigenous communities prior to the arrival of European Settlers. Many Indigenous nations had their own words, concepts, and traditions to define and identify people who did not conform to the binary gender system. However, when settler artists, documentarians, and ethnographers like Catlin depicted these distinct and large range of non-binary genders, each of which held a special cultural meaning to distinct Indigenous nations, they simply homogenized these genders with the category of ‘Berdache.’[30] As Miss Chief explains, “...the French called us the berdache, which stems from an Arabic word - Bardaj - meaning male concubine.”[41] In response to Catlin and other ‘ethnographers’ descriptions of peoples they identified as ‘Berdache’, Monkman introduced the two spirited figure of Miss Chief.[36]

Monkman has officially identified both himself and Miss Chief as two-spirit. Monkman has often depicted Miss Chief with a fluid gender, displaying a range of stereotypically masculine, feminine, and non-binary characteristics, both in her physical appearance as well as her actions. Miss Chief's identity as a two-spirit person, and her inclusion in Monkman's works that parody 19th century paintings, directly challenges the colonial depictions of the ‘Berdache’ figure. Although Miss Chief displays many stereotypically feminine traits with her clothing and makeup, she also “possesses an idealized masculine body, displays ‘manly’ skills and behaves in an aggressively manly fashion.”[36] She is often depicted as the figure in a position of dominance and authority, and in this way, she challenges the 19th century Settler ethnographers’ and artists’ depiction of two-spirited peoples as ‘slaves’, or ‘inferior’.[36] Furthermore, Miss Chief's unwavering ownership of her two-spirit identity “is an assertion that... the values of settler communities have not entirely succeeded in suppressing the sexual and gender mores of [Indigenous] communities...”[32]

In addition to challenging the ‘berdache’ figure, Miss Chief also defies Euro-North American men's depiction of Indigenous masculinity. According to Roland, a primary representation of Indigenous men perpetuated by Euro-North American men in the 19th century, depicted Indigenous men as “full of primitive strength, savage courage, and uncivilized passions.”[36] Monkman ironically does often depict Miss Chief in congruence with this conception of masculinity. However, by combining this representation of masculinity with contemporary drag clothing, makeup and an overall uniquely queer essence, Miss Chief subverts contemporary constructions of masculinity and Indigeneity that are based on dominant mainstream historical narratives.[42]

In simply transporting Miss Chief, as a two-spirit person, into both contemporary and historical colonial spaces, Monkman “indigenizes history, by making history and gender more fluid concepts.”[43] He undermines the binaries between men and women, and also between the past and present. Through traveling between eras and histories, Miss Chief shows that “the contemporary view [of Indigeneity and two-spiritedness] is incomprehensible without the past... we ourselves are still inhabited by these historical ideas and images.”[44] Miss Chief's time travelling abilities not only are useful in an analysis of two-spirit identities, but also for Queer Theory. When Monkman features Miss Chief in pieces that take place throughout the period of the arrival of European settlers up until the 19th century, she appears somewhat out-of-place with her contemporary appearance and 'diva-esque' personality.[31] On the other hand, when Miss Chief is featured in pieces that take place in the 21st century, she appears as “an anachronism, an element of the past bleeding into the present.”[31] This ‘asynchrony’ adds to Miss Chief's distinct queerness, as contemporary theorist Elizabeth Freeman suggests, “asynchrony can be viewed as a queer phenomenon.”[45]

Miss Chief is often seen wearing prominent designer brands, being featured in shoes like Louboutins, and accessorizing with brands like Louis Vuitton and Hudson's Bay. Miss Chief is also depicted wearing mismatched traditional Indigenous clothing. Oftentimes, she is seen wearing headdresses that were custom to one Indigenous nation, while also wearing moccasins that were traditional to an entirely different Indigenous nation.[46] Reilley Bishop-Stall suggests that Miss Chief's conflation of the customs and traditional wear of distinct Indigenous nations, is a direct reference to homogenizing and fetishizing depictions of Indigeneity in historical Western art and contemporary pop-culture.[46]

As Miss Chief herself stated during her performance of Seance at the Royal Ontario Museum in October 2007, artist Paul Kane “...always told me I wasn't authentic enough, as I was constantly traveling back and forth from Europe and always came back with the latest fashions.” According to Miss Chief, Kane didn't see her “as an authentic Aboriginal.”[32] As Alla Myzelev explains, in shifting from past homogenizing depictions of traditional Indigenous dress ‘captured’ by artists like Kane, to contemporary designer fashions of the present, Miss Chief “blurs the accepted boundaries between... authentic and inauthentic cultural formations.”[34]

In many traditional Indigenous teachings and storytellings, the trickster is a kind of supernatural and mischievous being who is often depicted defying social order. [47]Miss Chief is “a trickster, like the Cree Coyote spirit Wasahachuck, undefinable, fluid, charming, upsetting, silly, playful, revealing.”[36] She is able to travel between oppositions that “structure life in North America”[30] by undermining polarities between “the past and present, [the] resistant and the complicit... [the] authentic and the degraded.”[30] She “embodies the refusal of fixed positions”,[30] and therefore, by nature, is a ‘trickster’.

Contrary to colonial history, Monkman's works show Miss Chief as the figure who reverses the role between the colonist and the colonized as she fetishizes and culturally oppresses White Euro-North American men. Despite the violence and brutality of her actions in many of Monkman's works, the irony of the depicted scenes are generally considered to be humorous.[36] Staples of humor, like irony, are particularly important for Indigenous writers and artists, as literary critic Eva Gruber explains, many native artists and authors ironically “engage with the representational tropes [of Indigeneity], very nearly reproducing them in order to subvert and expose them as false constructions.”[48] In the use of irony, Monkman's Miss Chief often farcically recreates images of colonization with a reversal of roles between the Indigenous person and the Settler in order to defy “the written and printed narrative espoused by the so-called victors.”[31]

The role of Miss Chief as a trickster in Monkman's works, also alludes to “the tricks Monkman has played on the viewer in the painting.”[36] In Monkman's remasterings of classical Western fine art, Miss Chief is often included to “actively engage with and destabilize [colonial] historical events.”[3] As Shirley Madill argues, Miss Chief's ability to “reverse the gaze of colonizers”, tricks audiences into engaging with a history that is as equally fabricated as the histories depicted in historical documents and Western art that many people would consider to be ‘objective’.[3] In Monkman's works, Miss Chief's dominant position and her “commanding presence shows [historical] documents to be the fantasies they truly are.”[49]

In 2005, Monkman gave a live performance of The Taxonomy of The European Male, “which was later followed by a separate shooting session of Taxonomy.”[37] The content from that session was eventually edited into the film Group of Seven Inches. Although Miss Chief had already existed within Monkman's work for years prior to this performance and film, Group of Seven Inches was a major step in the evolution of Miss Chief's character, as it was the first time Monkman physically and publicly realized the character through his own body. [37]

Monkman's film begins with a long shot of Miss Chief, played by Monkman, riding bareback on a horse. Then, the camera focuses on two young European men in the woods, who Miss Chief spots and seductively persuades to join her in her studio. There, Miss Chief begins to paint the European subjects, providing them with liquor, and then eventually pouring whiskey all over them. Later, without any visuals, Miss Chief confirms that “both men are proven to measure seven inches.”[37] After the three characters fall asleep, the film continues with Miss Chief waking the men up and giving them instructions to put on “authentic European costumes, [to] play the piano, and dance among Miss Chief's paintings.”[37] The film then ends with the young men, dressed in traditional 19th century European clothing, looking at Miss Chief as she walks away, as she has completed her study of the European male.

Important to the film is the setting and context behind Monkman's inspiration for it. When Monkman was doing his artist residency at the McMichael Gallery in Vaughan, Ontario, the ‘First nations’ section of the gallery would repeatedly play Edward Curtis’ film In the Land of the Headhunters, 1914.[37] The film has been widely criticized for its depiction of Indigenous peoples as ‘frozen in time’, and for “staging traditional clothing... on the bodies of already-modern [Indigenous] peoples to supposedly document what he referred to as the last remains of ‘authentic Indigeneity...”[37] The gallery's support of Curtis’ ‘documentary’, was a major inspiration for Monkman to take Miss Chief from the hypothetical realm in his paintings, to the physical realm of photography and film. In addition to Monkman's mimicry of Curtis’ documentary style and themes, the film also speaks to critiques of the work of Canadian Group of Seven artist: Tom Thomson.[37] Miss Chief's studio, where much of the film takes place, is Thomson's rebuilt studio.

Prior to the creation of the film, Monkman had long been parodying 19th century ethnographic depictions of Indigeneity. However, these parodies always were based on, and remastered through fine art like paintings and drawings. While it is important to disprove the validity of 19th century Western artworks that constructed a false history of Indigenous peoples and cultures, the arrival of photography and filmmaking, and the depiction of Indigeneity through these mediums, are often publicly conceived as more reliable ‘evidence.’[46] In speaking to the seeming objectivity shown in photography and documentary filmmaking, Bill Nichols explains that “the bond between photographic, video, or digital images and what they represent can be extraordinarily powerful even if it can also be entirely fabricated.”[50] Reilley Bishop-Stall agrees that with today's development in technology “the evidential power of photographs and films has largely been disproved.”[46] However, as Bishop-Stall still argues, the general public's awareness of “potential manipulation...” of contemporary photographs and films “...has served to wrongly imbue earlier images with more authority.”[46] Therefore, visual media like filmmaking from the early 20th century is arguably more capable of constructing false histories of Indigeneity, which according to Monkman, was the case with Curtis’ documentary.[37] In the use of super-88-mm film, and Monkman's decision to “edit the video to appear as an early twentieth-century silent documentary film,”[37] The Group of Seven Inches mimics early 20th century documentarians, like Curtis, and “demonstrates how easy it is to make something appear factual in historical record.”[37]

In congruence with other depictions of Monkman's alter ego and her interactions with European settlers, Miss Chief primarily takes the dominant role among her ‘European subjects’, and she reverses the role between the ‘colonizer’ and the ‘colonized’. In Miss Chief's determined desire to study and document the European males, she alludes to the “...colonial ethnographic practices that sought to capture and contain vestiges of ‘primitive’ native ways of life...”[46] However, as she fetishizes, homogenizes, and misrepresents her European subjects, she also attempts to restrict the spaces they operate in by bringing the men out of their preferred locations, and by trying to make them vulnerable through inebriation.[37] In doing so, Miss Chief ironically references the contradictions in historical documentations of Indigeneity, as so-called ‘ethnographers’ and ‘documentarians’, as Pauline Wakeham argues, were simultaneously also the “preservers and the predators of the ‘vanishing race.’”[51]