CAA News Today

Postcommodity, Repellent Fence, 2015, installation view (artwork © Postcommodity; photograph by Michael Lundgren provided by Postcommodity)

Recent years have seen a boom in the creation of new art by Indigenous artists across North America—and a concomitant surge in scholarship about this art. The recently published issue of Art Journal is devoted to both the art and the research. In addressing the theme “Indigenous Futures,” editor-in-chief Rebecca M. Brown turned to the scholars Kate Morris and Bill Anthes as guest editors.

Works by dozens of Indigenous artists are featured in the issue, among them Kay WalkingStick, Kent Monkman, Shan Goshorn, Rebecca Belmore, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Will Wilson, and Edgar Heap of Birds. The artist collective Postcommodity created a project for the issue that includes the covers. Two artists wrote substantial texts: Jolene Rickard explores the theme of sovereignty in Indigenous art, while Marie Watt enjoys a frank chat with Joseph Beuys’s Coyote—who is amazingly au courant about today’s art.

In addition to Morris and Anthes, the scholars Jessica L. Horton, Dylan Robinson, and Sherry Farrell Racette provide insights into bodies of work by specific artists. A strong curatorial thread runs through the issue as well, with essays by Candice Hopkins and Heather Igloliorte; a magisterial essay by the curators Kathleen Ash-Milby and Ruth B. Phillips traces the history of critical exhibitions in North American museums and galleries since 1992, the year of the controversial “celebration” of the Columbus quincentennial.

The Reviews section of the issue features a 2015 book by W. J. T. Mitchell (reviewed by Caroline A. Jones), a substantial anthology on the postwar avant-garde in Scandinavia (by Karen Kurczynski), the exhibition and catalogue of Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium (by Camila Maroja), a multiauthor and -artist volume on the Indian city of Chandigarh (by Tracy Bonfitto), and the exhibition and catalogue of Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–1957 (by Erica DiBenedetto).

CAA sends print copies of Art Journal to all institutional members and to those individuals who choose to receive the journal as a benefit of membership. The digital version at Taylor & Francis Online is currently available to all CAA individual members regardless of their print subscription choice.