The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art - Hardcover
Over the last 15 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 the oral tradition. More than a critical/political strategy, such humour reflects a widespread cultural and communal sensibility embodied in the mythical Native American Trickster. This book explores the influence of this comic spirit on the practice of various 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.
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About the Author:
Allan J. Ryan lectures frequently on anthropology, art history, and Native Studies. He has been variously employed as a graphic designer, singer-songwriter, and television satirist. Currently, he is New Sun Chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture at Carleton University.
From Library Journal:
As illustrated by the recent Reservation X (LJ 5/1/99), Native Canadians are enjoying an especially vital art climate. Definitely disturbing and certainly immediate, this wonderful book brings together the work of some of these edgy young artists. Anthropologist and satirist Ryan (Univ. of British Columbia) celebrates the pervasive use of the old trickster humor, in this case by those who survive duress by satirizing, teasing, poking fun at, or humiliating whatever causes stress and pain. The result is the kind of modern art many find hard to handle: comic strip or graffiti, performance art or poetry, montage or assemblage, and always in-your-face, e.g., Bill Powless's "Indian Summer," a painting of an obese Indian in a bikini and umbrella beanie with a feather, eating a popsicle by the ocean. Comments range from "sick" to "this self-satisfied image of contemporary reality gently confounds the viewer and all but demolishes romantic fantasy." While this book is challenging and possibly offensive, it is a brave attempt to raise readers to new levels of consciousness. For larger public libraries or art collections with a Native American interest.AGay Neale, Southside Virginia Community Coll. Lib., Alberta
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherUniv of Washington Pr
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0295978163
- ISBN 13 9780295978161
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages320
- Rating
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