Going beyond the archival grid: Carl Beam and Greg Curnoe’s decolonization of a colonizing space

Abstract

A number of artists working in Canada have focused on the archive as a space that requires decolonization. This paper examines key archival artworks made by Anishinaabe artist Carl Beam (1943–2005) and settler-Canadian artist Greg Curnoe (1936–92). Though these artists approached the archive and decolonization from markedly different positions, both made work from which an epistemological shift occurred for themselves and their viewers. I argue that their works demonstrate the relevance of the archive as a site from which a decolonial future can emerge.

Keywords:

• archives
• decolonization
• Canadian art
• First Nations
• settler-colonial art history

Acknowledgements

I extend thanks to the two peer reviewers who provided very helpful feedback, and to Dr. Ruth B. Phillips for her constant support and mentorship.

Notes on contributor

Stacy A. Ernst is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Mediations program at the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University in Ottawa. Her dissertation, Multiple Modernisms North of the 49th Parallel: Nationalism, Sovereignty, and Decolonization in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Art from 1970–1995, is being completed under the supervision of Ruth B. Phillips and Brian Foss. This research is supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Notes

1. Indian Residential schools were active in Canada from the late 1880s to the 1970s. Christian churches operated the schools on behalf of the Canadian Government to facilitate the assimilation of Indigenous children into Western culture through restricting access to their families, language, and culture. In many instances, this cultural genocide was accompanied by sexual and physical abuse as well as chronic malnutrition. For a complete history see Sinclair, Littlechild, and Wilson (2012).

2. The North American Iceberg (1985), Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

3. On the anthropological erasure of Indigenous people from the present, see Fabian (1983).

4. Time Warp (1984), Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Exorcism (1984), Collection of Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay; Chronos 2 (1986), private collection.

5. This encapsulation of Beam’s aesthetic shares a certain affinity with Jarrett Martineau and Eric Ritskes (2014), who term this type of non-fixed aesthetic ‘fugitive’. They define it as that which ‘refuses the struggle for better or more inclusion and recognition … instead, chooses refusal and flight as modes of freedom’ (Martineau and Ritskes 2014: iv). There is an element of this fugitive in Beam’s work. He wanted to avoid fixity at all costs, but the notion of disavowal is more useful due to his desire to call into question the status quo. It is not just about avoiding fixity, but questioning the desire for fixity in the first place.

6. Sauvage (1988), Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

7. Drawer Full of Stuff (1961), Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

8. Treaty 2, The Mackee Purchase was signed on 19 May 1790 and Treaty 6, The London Township on 7 September 1796.

9. Settler participation in decolonization is a quickly emerging area of scholarship. In addition to Epp, see Decter and Tauton (2013). Regarding the specifics of decolonizing art history, see Skinner (2014).

10. As Curnoe notes in Deeds/Abstracts, the Neutral were referred to by different names including La Nation Neutre, Attiuoindaron, Attawandaron and Attiwandaronk. They were an Iroquois-speaking people whose territory stretched from present-day southwestern Ontario to New York State.

11. In Deeds/Nations, Davey refers to these works as It Is Me. In a letter dated March 20, 1992, Curnoe calls them It Is I. The various titles of the works are not surprising given that in a June 1992 letter Curnoe was inquiring about the Cornish translation of both ‘I’ and ‘me’. Letters located in box 13-1, Greg Curnoe Fonds, E.P. Taylor Research Library and Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario. Funding aid prepared by Judith Rodger and Amy Marshall, assisted by Ben Featherston, 2005.

12. Located in box 13-1, Greg Curnoe Fonds, E.P. Taylor Research Library and Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario.

13. Located in box 13-2, Greg Curnoe Fonds, E.P. Taylor Research Library and Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario.