Resurgence of the People - 2019
- Mia Davies
- Apr 15, 2020
- 4 min read
Whilst in New York, I remember sitting in the MET museum's Great Hall looking at this painting by Kent Monkman for around an hour. It is possibly the most amazing, captivating painting I've ever seen. It is a huge (11 feet X 22 feet), bright, busy masterpiece. Every time I look at it I notice something new and that's what I love about it.
After looking it up online, I found out its actually part of a 2 piece collection, this being the second part to the story.
On first impression I assumed the painting was to resemble the current struggles of refugees across the world; fleeing wars, poverty, corrupt governments and climate change struggles.
The human eye naturally follows in a clockwise manor, after you first see the figure holding a feather (possibly a symbol of good luck / faith? ), your eyes flow to the top left. Here are 4 full-body portraits of angry, aggressive looking men in powerful positions (police, army, possible activists). To me, these symbolise the threat and / or reasoning as to why the people are risking their lives fleeing somewhere on a wooden boat, across what appears to be a very choppy, dangerous ocean.
The characters included in the image are of all difference ages, genders and races, however there appears to be a wider inclusion of indigenous people - as identified from their dress and accessories, common of this race. As you can notice at the bottom of the image, there is a male figure who is wearing a shirt and tie, holding onto the side of the boat. Similarly, there is a figure next to him who I can assume is also a male, wearing a shirt and is looking lifeless - perhaps this shows the struggles people are facing despite their societal position / job role? As typically, business men would be seen as powerful and wealthy.
The artist’s alter ego, 'Miss Chief Eagle Testickle', stands tall draped in red, and they are based on a gender non-binary figure. I love the use of this inclusion - at first a muscular looking male, but when explored deeper you notice the heeled shoe, use of long, generic female-looking head of hair, and the character looks like they are wearing makeup.
Another detail from Monkman’s “Resurgence of the People”, is the inclusion of a healthy baby in the arms of a same-sex Indigenous couple - battling the norms of their societies, and being used to display the shift in same-sex relationships in today's times, as they are now more accepted on a global scale.
All of the people have distressed facial expressions, accurately portraying the horror refugees face when crossing oceans to escape. Despite this, they are all helping each other out as if they are united in hope of creating their new lives at their destination.
Another of my favourite features of the painting is how it includes pollution in the ocean; plastic bottles and black water which resembles an oil spillage. This is needed in current art. It is there for a sense of realism, and to evoke distress in the viewers; making us see how climate change and pollution is a huge issue now across the globe.
What does confuse me about this painting, is firstly the incorporation of a bird and beaver. I just can't seem to understand why they're in it, as they seem rather random? Secondly, why only four people have lifejackets, and no one else...
I have recently decided to google the true meanings behind the painting, and it was definitely insightful. My first impressions were pretty much bang on - but the insight into his referencing back to historical paintings became clear. For example:
Monkman's paintings in this series are described as "multi-figured narratives, inspired by a Euro-American tradition of history painting but entirely present-tense in theme and tone."
Mr. Monkman himself is of mixed Cree (a member of an indigenous person living in a vast area of central Canada) and Irish heritage, and he is one of Canada’s best-known contemporary artists. He has been known to stir controversy on his home ground particularly because he has made the violence done under European occupation, to North America’s first peoples, a central subject of his work. However, in doing so he has also, crucially, switched a conventional, disempowering idea of Native victimhood on its head - something which clearly, needed to happen in order to engage and educate an audience of people all over the world.
"The most radical aspect of his work in the context of the Met — an “encyclopedic” museum thoroughly Western in attitude — is that it presents a view of art history through the eyes of the Other, in this case Native Americans and people of Canada’s First Nations. The shift in cultural positioning begins with the exhibition title. Mistikosiwak, or Wooden Boat People, was a Cree name for European settlers arriving in what is now North America." - Holland Cotter
Mia
xo
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