Cree artist’s latest angers indigenous Canadians
TORONTO — Many First Nations, Metis and Inuit Canadians consider Justin Trudeau, after more than four years as prime minister, as little better than the other white colonial leaders who have oppressed them for the past 150 years.
His only indigenous Cabinet minister quit and his government approved pipelines across indigenous territory, despite dissent and protests.
But still, that sentiment had not prepared even some of Trudeau’s sharpest critics for a painting by the celebrated Canadian Cree artist Kent Monkman.
Titled Hanky Panky, Monkman’s painting depicts the prime minister on his hands and knees with his pants down as a crowd of indigenous women looks on, laughing. Behind him is the artist’s alter ego, wearing knee-high stiletto boots and a long feather headdress.
The image suggests themes of sexual violence and humiliation. And instead of cheers, the painting, released on social media this month, has inspired anger among many indigenous people who say Monkman has gone too far.
Critics have described the painting as culturally degrading “revenge porn” that equates rape with retribution.
The outcry was a sharp reminder that while Canada is under lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s existential crisis over the historic abuse of indigenous people — and their continued overrepresentation in jails, foster homes, morgues, missing persons lists and poverty statistics — is still simmering.
“I don’t like the colonial government and don’t like things Justin Trudeau has said and done, but I would never wish sexual violence on anyone,” said jaye simpson, an indigenous trans woman and writer from Vancouver, who was among the piece’s vocal critics. (She chooses not to use capitalization in her name.)
Monkman, who identifies as Cree and Two Spirit, is often recognized for representing indigenous voices in his art. But “his work was never for us,” simpson wrote on Twitter, referring to indigenous people of marginalized genders. “It was never intended to keep us safe, nor empower us.”
In a statement posted on his website, Monkman said the feedback from his community would “have a lasting impact” on him and influence his work. He has also apologized, acknowledging that the elements he included to indicate consent in the painting were not prominent enough. (Monkman declined a request for an interview.)
“That’s what Monkman does: He takes an image and flings it in your face,” said Patty Krawec, an Ojibwe-Ukrainian podcaster in Niagara Falls who worked in a sexual assault center for years. “But in this one, he’s made us complicit in this violence. If this is retribution, how dare you make me complicit in that?”
Monkman is among the most successful artists in Canada. His work is coveted by the country’s elite and at international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which commissioned two large paintings by him and installed them in the museum’s entrance in November. Monkman’s recent large works have sold for more than $100,000.
Mostly, his pieces are historical paintings that subvert classical works by inserting indigenous figures and stories. They often include his bawdy gender-bending alter ego, whom he has called “Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.”
Though he has said his paintings are meant to shock people and provoke questions, the visceral response to his latest piece surprised him.
“I wish for my work to resist the colonial traumas inflicted upon my own family and so many others for generations, not to perpetuate harm,” Monkman wrote on Facebook, offering an apology.
While Monkman had a relatively privileged upbringing in Winnipeg, with a Cree father and white mother, he has said he identified strongly with his paternal great-grandmother, who lived with them.
His great-grandmother lost her daughter to a residential school, institutions mostly run by religious orders that were used by the Canadian government for more than a century as weapons of assimilation. Indigenous children were often forcibly removed from their families and cultures and placed in the schools, where many were physically and sexually abused.
One of Monkman’s best-known works is The Scream, featuring priests, nuns and Canadian policemen tearing children from the arms of screaming women.