Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 is the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to centre performance and theatre as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists, beginning with the role that Indigenous artists have played in the self-determination era, sparked by the Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes in 1969. Native artists then and now are at the vanguard of performance art practices and discourse. As part of Indian Theater, their work uses humour as a strategy for cultural critique and reflection, parses the inherent relationships between objecthood and agency, and frequently complicates representations of the Native body through signalling the body’s absence and presence via clothing, blanketing, and adornment. In the exhibition, song, dance, and music are also posited as a basis for collectivity and resistance and a means to speak back to a time when Native traditional ceremony and public gatherings were illegal in both the United States and Canada. In addition to artworks, the exhibition includes important archival material documenting the emergence of the New Native Theater movement in Santa Fe in 1969 as well as materials directly related to the early self-determination era. 

Featuring over 100 works by artists representing a range of perspectives and practices, as well as performances and activations throughout the summer.

The exhibition and associated publication is made possible by Lonti Ebers, the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, Becky and David Gochman, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support for Indian Theater has been provided by Forge Project, Teiger Foundation, The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation, and the Kettering Family Foundation. Indian Theater was originally organized by the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), New York. The MacKenzie Art Gallery is honoured to host the Canadian premiere of Indian Theater. This presentation is organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s Programs team.

White Carver, an artwork by artist Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), is an ongoing performance reflecting the legacy of appropriation and demonstration in Indigenous art, particularly by non-Indigenous individuals. Mimicry of Indigenous culture has homogenized Northwest Coast visual languages to generate capital without benefit to the Indigenous communities responsible for developing these art forms. Galanin’s work reverses the gaze toward the “White Carver,” modelling the work after the fetishization Indigenous artists and cultures are subjected to by non-Indigenous markets and consumers. The piece is built around the labour of an unnamed white man who is attempting to replicate Galanin’s work; the White Carver’s own reputation and enforced privilege is built on the attempted destruction of the culture he is now imitating.  

The installation separates the figure of the White Carver from the viewer and the work that he attempts to re-create with a velvet rope. Outside the rope, a vitrine contains I Looooooove Your Culture, Fine Woodworking (2012), a yellow-cedar masturbation tool hand-carved by Nicholas Galanin. The cedar carving, done with traditional materials and tools, makes clear the intersection of cultural fetish with sexual fetish—each targets desire for a single part of an otherwise ignored and devalued whole. Galanin’s carving is mistaken by the White Carver for a customary object to be mined as a resource. 

Performed during select opening hours. 

Nicholas Galanin’s White Carver will be activated by local woodcarvers at different times throughout the exhibition’s duration.  

• May 22 (opening 7–9 PM) activation by Chad Arie 
• May 23 (4–5 PM) activation by Chad Arie 
• May 24 (11 AM–1 PM and 2:30–4:30 PM) activation by Jesse Goddard 
• June 12 (evening) activation by Chad Arie