Heuristic Categorizations: Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Québec

In 2013, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) presented the exhibition Sakahàn, a main objective of which was to illustrate the wide aesthetic diversity of international Indigenous art. Another aim was to strengthen relationships among artists, curators, authors, scholars, and the gallery itself to highlight the fundamental and original contribution of Indigenous artists to contemporary art discourse. Launching a five-year dissemination program intended to enable curators to adapt to the changing dynamic of Indigenous art, the exhibition was not intended to be exhaustive; with twenty-four artists on display, it would have been difficult for Sakahàn to have a specific thematic direction unless it was Aboriginal identity itself. As Christine Lalonde, associate curator for Indigenous art at the NGC, noted, “The selected artworks advance the dialogue, not by defining what is (or who is) Indigenous, but by contemplating, as artist and musician Nicholas Galanin expresses it, ‘what it means to be Indigenous in the twenty-first century.’”1 1  - Christine Lalonde, “Introduction,” in Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, ed. Greg Hill, Candice Hopkins, and Christine Lalonde (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2013), 15 – 16. Although it explores the flexibility and inclusiveness of the notion of “autochthony,” Sakahàn reminds us that this aspect of art history must continue to be written on a smaller scale. Of course, it is important to develop an international community of players in the Indigenous art world, but, in Canada alone, the scope of work that remains to be done is staggering. The case of contemporary Aboriginal art in Quebec is a striking example of the gap that needs to be bridged and at the same time highlights a range of specific epistemological issues.2 2  - This question is the subject of one of the areas of analysis of the Groupe de recherche sur l’art contemporain autochtone au Québec, led by Louise Vigneault, in the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the Université de Montréal. The hypotheses discussed in the present essay result from work done by this research group.

When one looks at the territorial division of Canada, it is obvious that the borders have no representative value for Aboriginal nations. We have only to think of the Mohawks, who live in communities in both Quebec and Ontario — as well as in the United States — to understand that the arbitrary cartography traced by history has, once again, omitted much. Beyond geographic divisions, Quebec also stands out for its demographics. In comparison, it is likely that Aboriginal communities will form almost one third of the population in Saskatchewan by 2045,³ 3 - Government of Saskatchewan, “Aboriginal People,” www.gov.sk.ca/Default.aspx? DN=d35c114d-b058-49db-896a-4f657f5fd66e. and Ontario is home to twice as many Aboriginals as Quebec;⁴ 4 - Employment and Social Development, “Canadians in Context — Aboriginal Population,” http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3nd.3c.1t.4r@-eng.jsp? iid=36.  it is difficult not to envision that these demographics will influence the presence and representativeness of Indigenous art. We can add to this the evident demographic impact of Aboriginals living in urban centres, who are better known as “urban Natives.” The exhibition Beat Nation, first presented at Ottawa’s SAW Gallery in 2009,⁵ 5 - Significantly, before being presented as an exhibition, Beat Nation was a web project organized by curators Tania Willard and Skeena Reece and distributed by Vancouver’s Grunt Gallery. See www.beatnation.org. This multiplicity of distribution platforms fits perfectly with the plurality and mobility of the Aboriginal approach to artistic representation. provides a clear overview of the artistic effervescence arising from the encounter between Aboriginal artists and the symbolic, historical, and — to a certain degree — logistical realities of urban life. In an exhibition targeting the intersection of hip-hop and Aboriginal culture, it was impossible not to include works by young urban artists.