Autochthonous People in the Art World

The greater visibility of indigenous struggles around the world is accompanied by an increased presence of indigenous artists in the art world. In New York City for instance, the Metropolitan Museum recently commissioned Kent Monkman to paint monumental paintings for its main lobby. The artist turns the history of European painting and colonial narratives upside down. This dossier approaches indigeneity from a perspective similar to that of the Ex Africa exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly (February 9th— June 27th, 2021), which addresses the classical arts of Africa allowing contemporary artists to talk about the traditions that stir them. As suggested by Morgan Labar, who is organizing oneday seminars on the subject at the École Normale Supérieure on March 26th and 27th, the indigenisation of the art world raises once again the question of “identity politics,” between the risk of retreat into nationalist ideas of identity and indigenous models for fluid, labile identities. Kent Monkman, of Cree and Irish descent, discusses the label “indigenous artist” in Canada; while Yasmine Espert evokes the young Caribbean generation, in particular Minia Biabiany, who situates indigeneity in the West Indies against a backdrop of soil pollution and the memory of the Maroons. Multifocal, the exploration of the indigenous question then passes through Africa with the work of Roméo Mivekannin, who defines himself as an “intercessor” between two worlds; and ends in Central Asia and the Caucasus with Thibaut de Ruyter, who returns to the question of identity, central to artists’ discourse, to the point that the postcolonial spirit that accompanied the fall of the USSR sometimes lapses into nationalism.