ADRIAN STIMSON — Naked Napi

Exhibition presented by the CIAC MTL at CDEx, UQAM, 405 Saint-Catherine East Street (at the Saint-Denis street corner), Montreal, Room J-R940, from August 5th to 21st 2019, 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

 

The works from Naked Napi, by Adrian Stimson, were first shown at the SUM Gallery in Vancouver in 2018, Edmonton Art Gallery in 2019 and Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto in June-July of that year. “As natives, our existence is political in this country. All my life, I’ve been exposed to racism in this country and fought its scourge since childhood”, says Stimson. Two-Spirit people, he believes, are fighting the same fight as the bison 150 years ago. “Buffalo Boy”, a nickname adopted by Stimson, is the character he plays in many of his works.

 

Photos © Guy L’Heureux

 

ADRIAN STIMSON TELLS HIS STORY:

During my MFA at the University of Saskatchewan, I wrote a paper called “Too Two-Spirited for you; the absence and presence of Two-Spirit people in Western Culture and Media”. Part of the research was going back in history to the earliest meetings between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples to see if there were any depictions of Two-Spirit people.

 

Of many artists Theodore De Bry stands out. De Bry who never visited the Americas, created a number of etchings for books, illustrating various meetings between conquistadors and indigenous populations as well as depictions of indigenous life. These depictions were based on firsthand accounts, highly stylized and detailed and often-portrayed violent acts toward the indigenous population reinforcing the colonial conquest narrative.

 

De Bry’s images are evidence of the diversity of sexuality in the America’s pre-contact; they prove that for the colonizers, indigenous sexuality was to be feared, conquered or destroyed. Sadly as De Bry’s etchings prove many “sodomites” were put to their death, thus pushing underground or eradicating Two Spirited being, sexuality and ceremony. Western Christian morality was not compatible with many of America’s indigenous populations, a systemic process of eradicating indigenous ways of being was put into place; Indian Wars, starvation, diseased blankets, aggressive assimilation, residential schools were some of the many racist policies implemented and continue in our times.

 

Historically, indigenous peoples were sexual and were not ashamed of sex or their bodies. Nudity was normal, the human body was a part of nature and in observing nature, sexuality was diverse and to be celebrated.

 

For the Blackfoot, a lot of our stories have sexual content, sex and sexuality was often interwoven within the language. A cultural worker friend of mine who was in charge of recording elders many years ago, told me how funny it was to translate the recordings of the elder women, she said, “it was like being in a men’s locker room”, the descriptive, unapologetic and funny use of sexuality within the language demonstrates that we were not afraid of our sexuality nor western morally, we are not bound to western ideas of piety, shame and fear of sex and sexual diversity. Yet the damage has been done and now, it is our right and duty to reclaim our sexual histories. I hope through this series of paintings to trigger people, to help them understand and accept our ways of life. To be Napi and create stories for our time and Two-Spirited being.

 

 

Napi is a Blackfoot character that is central to our stories; he is often referred to as the “Old Man”. Napi comes from the sun, he is our quasi-Creator, he is crazy, funny, and is sometimes a fool. He also can be brutal and very mean. In many of our stories, Napi is the creator – along with “Old Woman”– of many of our objects and creatures. Napi is not our god, yet like many divine entities he is credited with the creation of the world and everything in it. But Napi also gets into a lot of trouble when he starts messing with his own creation; this is why we also refer to Napi as a trickster, a contrary. Napi stories are very familiar in Blackfoot country, often told by elders who have a history of storytelling and the rights to tell these stories. Napi and his many stories are our guide to life, he teaches us lessons on how to live and not to live, in a way he is our moral guide, giving us insight into our human condition.

 

My intent by creating the series of paintings called Naked Napi and Naked Napi Big Smoke is to talk back to and appropriate De Bry’s depictions, especially the emasculation, degradation and slaughtering of the Two-Spirited, to bring them into the present, exorcise the horrors that these Two-Spirited people faced, to reclaim our power, bodies and sexuality.

 

While Napi Stories are often told by elders who have been the recipients of these stories from time immemorial, a new generation of Blackfoot artists, actors and story tellers have started to create new Napi stories, Napi is not static, he is dynamic. By creating these stories, I hope to re-imagine Napi in the present, to Queer him, to create new stories and ideas based on our past yet reflect our present and future. As a part of creating these paintings, each painting will come with a story, a story in English, to be translated into Blackfoot. Stories that share moments in our time, our struggles, our hopes, both funny and tragic. Hopefully, this creates a space where we can imagine a future where Napi still gives us insight into our human condition and be a continuum of Indigenous/Blackfoot knowledge.

 

SEE LIST OF WORKS

LIST OF WORKS

All artworks presented are from the artist’s collection.

 

1.       Naked Napi as long as the water flows from Naked Napi’s Contemporary Life, 2018

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

36 x 24 x ½ inches ( 91 x 61 x 1 cm )

 

2.       Naked Napi and the Pipeline from Naked Napi’s Contemporary Life, 2018

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

36 x 24 x ½ inches ( 91 x 61 x 1 cm )

 

3.       Naked Napi and the Russian Trolls from Naked Napi’s Contemporary Life, 2018

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

36 x 24 x ½ inches ( 91 x 61 x 1 cm )

 

4.       Naked Napi as Cigar store Indian from Naked Napi’s Contemporary Life, 2018

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

36 x 24 x ½ inches ( 91 x 61 x 1 cm )

 

5.       Naked Napi and the Alt right from Naked Napi’s Contemporary Life, 2018

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

36 x 24 x ½ inches ( 91 x 61 x 1 cm )

 

6.       Naked Napi Big Smoke #1, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

7.       Naked Napi Big Smoke #2, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

8.       Naked Napi Big Smoke #3, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

9.       Naked Napi Big Smoke #4, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

10.    Naked Napi Big Smoke #5, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

11.    Naked Napi Big Smoke #6, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel

14 x 11 inches ( 35 x 28 cm )

 

12.    Naked Napi’s Columbus and the gilded cocks, 2019

Acrylic, oil, 24 karat gold leaf and graphite on birch wood panel triptych

60 x 48 x 1 5/8 inches ( 35 x 28 x 4 cm )

 

13.    Naked Napi Smoke Signals, 2019

Graphite, pen and oil on birch wood panel

12 x 10 inches ( 30 x 25 cm )

 

14.    Narcissus Selfie, 2019

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

10 x 12 inches ( 25 x 30 cm )

 

15.    Naked Napi Budget Cuts, 2019

Graphite and oil on birch wood panel

12 x 10 inches ( 30 x 25 cm )

 

16.    Naked Napi Big Smokin’, 2019

Graphite, pen, oil, and 24 karat gold leaf on birch wood panel

10 x 12 inches ( 25 x 30 cm )

 

17.    Naked Napi’s Afterbirth of Canada’s Indians, with Disco Ball, 2018

(inspired by Harold Cardinal’s The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians 1977)

3 Rawhide mannequins and string, modified cross, wax, mirror ball

 

18.    Taking on Columbus, 2015 from Event Horizon series

Oil on birch wood panel

20 x 16 inches ( 50 x 40 cm )

( private collection )

 

19.    Naked Napi wrestling a pipeline, 2019

Etching Edition of 10, #1

Sheet size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38 x 28 cm ) – Image size: 5 x 3 inches ( 12 x 7 cm )

 

20.    Naked Napi’s Gay Sharks, 2019

Etching Edition of 10, #1

Sheet size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38 x 28 cm ) – Image size: 5 x 3 inches ( 12 x 7 cm )

 

21.    Naked Napi’s Down Under, 2019

Etching Edition of 10, #1

Sheet size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38 x 28 cm ) – Image size: 5 x 3 inches ( 12 x 7 cm )

 

22.    Naked Napi Big Smoke, 2019

Etching Edition of 10, #1

Sheet size: 15 x 11 inches ( 38 x 28 cm ) – Image size: 5 x 3 inches ( 12 x 7 cm )

 

We thank Paul Petro from Paul Petro Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, for his generous contribution to our project.


CURATOR AND PROJECT INITIATOR

CLAUDE GOSSELIN, C.M. (c.v.)
Founder – General and Artistic Director
Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal
claude.gosselin@ciac.ca


ASSOCIATE CURATOR

ANDRÉ DUDEMAINE
Founder – Director of Cultural Activities
Festival Présence autochtone, Montreal


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