There is a crisis of representation within the Canadian art world, and much of it is rooted in coloniality and how it inherently devalues those who practice their lifeways outside of the nation state’s structural paradigms. This is most evident in how Indigenous bodies and epistemologies are often fringed by the reductivism that is practiced by the capitalist art world in what is now Canada. To highlight this, I have chosen two recent ‘controversies’ that have involved Indigenous creators: Rebecca Belmore’s ‘I QUIT’ performance, and the recent downfall of Canadian Art magazine contextualized with the experiences of its former Indigenous editor at large, Jas Morgan. Both these events highlight the precarious spaces in which Indigenous creators continue to operate, fraught with racism and the commodification of their cultural practices in service to a capitalist art world.
In September 2010, Anishinaabe performance artist Rebecca Belmore approached the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery and sat in front of the ubiquitous building, with a sign behind her that read “I AM WORTH MORE THAN ONE MILLION DOLLARS TO MY PEOPLE”. She laid down some artworks of hers and over the span of twenty minutes, wrapped them and presented them to the VAG’s curator, proclaiming that she was quitting the art world. This performance, titled Worth was Belmore’s response to an ongoing lawsuit in which her former gallery sued her for terminating a relationship which Belmore deemed was toxic. It was alleged that the gallery had sold some of her work without paying Belmore, though it was the gallery who was seeking damages from Belmore, citing lost ‘profit’ from future sales.
The lawsuit and Belmore’s response to it highlights an important chasm that continues to plague the art world in what is now Canada. On the one side are institutions such as museums, galleries, and individual collectors who often view Indigenous cultural forms as something that can be commodified and quantified. On the other are Indigenous creatives who view the articulation of their traditions as central to their sovereignty and existence. By proclaiming boldly that she is worth more than a million dollars to her people and that she was ‘quitting’ the art world, Belmore is justifiably expressing the notion that Indigenous ideas and lifeways are not for sale, and that it is not appropriate for artistic institutions to devalue and profit off them by reducing their value to something that can be quantified on the art market.
Exploitation of Indigenous epistemologies is not exclusive to the art market. It manifests itself in asymmetrical power structures in cultural institutions and those who engage with the emotional labour and aesthetics of Indigeneity to benefit themselves and the structures of White supremacy. In early 2021, the editors of Canadian Art magazine put their publication on hiatus, citing financial difficulties with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crises of racial injustice in cultural institutions. In October of 2021, the magazine shut down permanently citing an inability to overcome these hardship. For 37 years, the magazine saw itself as the seminal voice and conscience of the Canadian art world, but that was clearly being questioned by its Indigenous staff and writers. Several months prior to the magazine’s downfall, Jas Morgan (formerly Lindsay Nixon), the magazine’s former Indigenous Editor-at-large posted a damning letter implicating the Board of the publication and it’s former Editor-in-Chief in racist and exploitative practices that resulted in their suicidal ideation and a decline in their health and well-being.
While on the surface, the magazine had seemingly taken a greater interest in featuring Indigenous art practices and centering the voices of Indigenous creators, it was using that model as a means to exploit Indigenous labour in service to its overwhelmingly White interests and benefactors. Morgan, being a queer Indigenous person, was being used as the magazine’s cheerleader for diversity and inclusion, all the while they were poorly compensated for their work and were subjected to abuse for speaking truth to power. The situation with Canadian Art demonstrates how the power structures of cultural institutions continue to be deeply rooted in an exploitative capitalist model where emotional labour is extracted and commodified in the interests of maintaining colonial power and domination.
Both the lawsuit involving Rebecca Belmore, and the recent demise of Canadian Art highlight the ongoing crises of representation with regards to BIPOC artists, and the need for deep introspection within the Canadian art world. Its exploitative and extractive models of commodifying the labour of BIPOC creators only serve to act as a continuation of colonial violence, abuse, and erasure. The responses of Belmore and Morgan against these structures of power signal the fact that these toxic practices will no longer be tolerated, and it is up to us all to ensure that we continue holding these cultural institutions to account for their complicity in upholding the cultural hegemony of the nation state.
