No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 446-465).

In 1967, the Vancouver Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled Arts of the Raven: Masterworks by the Northwest Coast Indian in celebration of Canada’s centennial. The following thesis discusses the way in which the curators of the Arts of the Raven exhibit constructed the Northwest Coast “Indian-Master” artist as a strategy that figured into a larger, shifting cultural field. The intention of the exhibit organizers was to contribute to the shift from ethnology to art. While this shift can be dated to the turn of the century, this thesis deals primarily with the period from 1958-1967, a decade described by the preeminent First Nations’ political leader, George Manuel, as the time of “the rediscovery of the Indian”. How the formation of an Indian-master artist (and his masterworks) intervened in art historical practice, and dovetailed with the meaning that the affix “Indian” carried in the public sphere, is considered. In the 1960s, this meaning was fostered, in part, through a reassessment of Canada’s history in preparation for the centennial. This event drew attention to the historical relationship between Canada and aboriginal peoples through public criticism of the government by public interest groups, Indian organizations, and civil rights and anti-poverty movements. The category of mastery, which functions as a sign of class, taste and prestige in European art canons, “included” the Indian under the rubric of white male genius. Yet the Indian as a sign of upward mobility was incommensurable with the Native reality in Canada at the time. In other words, the exhibit produced an abstract equality that eclipsed the concrete inequality most First Nations peoples were actually experiencing. This thesis concludes by arguing that the Arts of the Raven exhibit came to serve the important purpose of creating a space for the “unique individual-Indian” from which collective political First Nations voices would speak.

Over the last fifteen years a select group of professionally trained and politically astute Canadian artists of Native ancestry has produced a compelling body of work that owes much of its power to a wry and ironic sense of humour rooted firmly in oral tradition. More than a critical/political strategy, such humour reflects a widespread cultural and communal sensibility embodied in the mythical Native American Trickster. The present study explores the influence of this comic spirit on the practice of several artists through the presentation of a "Trickster discourse," that is, a body of overlapping and interrelated verbal and visual narratives by tricksters and about trickster practice. Most of the research for this project took place between January 1990 and November 1991 and involved extended conversations with artists, elders, actors, writers, linguists, curators and art historians in six Canadian provinces. Over 80 hours of interviews were amassed along with several hundred slides and photographs of artists' work. From this body of material 140 images were selected for analysis with well over 100 commentaries and reflections on practice excerpted from the interviews. These verbal and visual narratives have been gathered together under the broad headings of self-identity, representation, political control and global presence. In light of the highly eclectic and hybrid nature of these narratives, an eclectic and hybrid conceptual framework has been constructed to consider them. Accordingly, a multiplicity of theoretical concepts has been braided together and interwoven throughout the chapters to reflect the complexity, density and interconnectedness of the material. To convey the sense of raultilayered communication and simultaneous conversation, quotation and footnote have been used extensively as parallel and overlapping texts. In this they constitute a form of hypertext or hypermedia. More importantly, the text honours and participates in a non-linear process of representation shared by many of the artists.

Thesis--University of Minnesota. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

In 1967, the Vancouver Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled Arts of the Raven: Masterworks by the Northwest Coast Indian in celebration of Canada’s centennial. The following thesis discusses the way in which the curators of the Arts of the Raven exhibit constructed the Northwest Coast “Indian-Master” artist as a strategy that figured into a larger, shifting cultural field. The intention of the exhibit organizers was to contribute to the shift from ethnology to art. While this shift can be dated to the turn of the century, this thesis deals primarily with the period from 1958-1967, a decade described by the preeminent First Nations’ political leader, George Manuel, as the time of “the rediscovery of the Indian”. How the formation of an Indian-master artist (and his masterworks) intervened in art historical practice, and dovetailed with the meaning that the affix “Indian” carried in the public sphere, is considered. In the 1960s, this meaning was fostered, in part, through a reassessment of Canada’s history in preparation for the centennial. This event drew attention to the historical relationship between Canada and aboriginal peoples through public criticism of the government by public interest groups, Indian organizations, and civil rights and anti-poverty movements. The category of mastery, which functions as a sign of class, taste and prestige in European art canons, “included” the Indian under the rubric of white male genius. Yet the Indian as a sign of upward mobility was incommensurable with the Native reality in Canada at the time. In other words, the exhibit produced an abstract equality that eclipsed the concrete inequality most First Nations peoples were actually experiencing. This thesis concludes by arguing that the Arts of the Raven exhibit came to serve the important purpose of creating a space for the “unique individual-Indian” from which collective political First Nations voices would speak. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate