Constructions of Indigeneity in Postwar Art of the Americas

This panel examines the role of Indigeneity as an underacknowledged subtext for postwar aesthetic discourses in the Americas. Although this phenomenon has multiple points of origin, many artists working in the 1960s to the 1980s turned toward archaeologist George Kubler’s framework of irreducible “prime models,” a concept that flattened cultural difference and context in search of the collective unconscious. Far from replicating blatant stereotypes, settler artists like Olga de Amaral, Sheila Hicks, Robert Smithson and Charles Simonds blended signifiers of various cultures of the Americas into works channeling this supposedly “timeless and mystical” Indigenous authenticity. Meanwhile, Indigenous artists responded to this primitivizing discourse through a range of strategies–from Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s formal exploration of loaded symbols to James Luna’s pointed performances of cultural stereotypes.

Scholars like Philip Deloria, Paul Chaat Smith, and Diana Taylor have analyzed the phenomenon of “playing Indian” but relatively little art historical scholarship has addressed how settler artists have conflated and complicated Indigenous materials, processes, and imagery into a universal source for creativity. We invite papers that explore artists’ desires for cultural authenticity, constructions of Indigeneity, and/or their strategic negotiation of cultural expectations around marginalized identities. This panel sits at the intersection of visual culture, art history, and Indigenous studies, and will explore perceptions and reflections of “Indigeneity” in art produced by both settler and Indigenous artists of the twentieth century.