Contested Spaces: Negotiating Native American Artistic Identity in Los Angeles

A brief overview of my doctoral research -

‘Artists have such important work to do...they are our ambassadors. Good art or bad, the stories continue to be told through word, image, song and gesture’

(Mithlo, 2011:24)

Contested Spaces: Negotiating Native American Artistic Identity in Los Angeles maps a Native American artworld in Los Angeles and in doing so, tells the complex story of how Native artists use visual mediums as a way to communicate and perpetuate contemporary and urban Indigeneity. Unlike other artworlds, the Los Angeles Native artworld has many arenas of exhibition, display and performance from museum and gallery exhibitions, Powwows and other cultural festivals and art events, on-screen and theatre performances. My research tracks the way these artworld arenas inform and relate to each other, and how they are layered upon the city of Los Angeles and the non-Native population. By exploring multiple art arenas and art mediums, my research is wide-ranging as focusing on just one visual medium would give a fragmented depiction of the Native artworld in LA. To explore this artworld I draw on numerous interviews and experiences with artists, actors and those involved in the film and television realm, traditional dancers, curators and other museum professionals, prominent Native community members and elders and local government officials. Though I include many voices, I draw heavily on several artists and their art practices and motivations and embodiments of cultural identity in order to more deeply show some of the lived experiences of contemporary urban Native arts producers. This research provides a unique look at this artworld community as well as anthropological work in Los Angeles.

Contested Spaces begins with an overview of both Native American art history and the history of Los Angeles as a Native space, introducing the local ancestral tribes, the Gabrielino-Tongva, Chumash and Tataviam, as well as the city’s Native and wider Indigenous diaspora population and the socio-historic reasons for this. Acknowledging the history of Native presence in LA and Native art history is integral to understanding the experience of those I worked with and write about. Understanding how and why Native American art has been perceived, valued, collected and displayed since the late 1800s to present day is crucial foundational knowledge in understanding contemporary Native art practices and the role art plays within Native and wider artworlds. For example, through transformations from material culture of a perceived “vanishing” race, curio art and souvenirs, to nationalistic ethnic art, modern art and contemporary art, as well as understanding how some artists or art forms move beyond the local art network and community into high art institutions, and how artworks move through social institutions and consequent assignation of value. To help substantiate this, I used museums as field-sites to engage with politics of exhibition, display, collecting and storage and give both local and national examples. This includes discussing exhibition practices and NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) protocols at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, alongside in-depth research conducted at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. I used the Chumash basket collections at these institutions to highlight the spread of Los Angeles Native material culture in museums, and how the baskets themselves are sites of culture and tradition, identity, and survival, and how their value has changed in line with historic attitudes of dealers and collectors.

Left to right: 1) Largest Chumash basket ever found, carbon-dated to mid-1500s to mid-1600s. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. 2) Working with "Queen Isabella’s Crown” basket woven by Petra Pico, (Chumash) c.1894, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, CAT: 313084. 3) Chumash presentation basket by Juana Basilia Sitmelelene c.1820 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

I also explore the problematic history and binary discourse surrounding “traditional” versus “modern” Native art categorisation, instead showing how Native art can be both “traditional” and “modern” due to Native aesthetics and through revitalisation practices. As my research shows, the visual mediums produced can be sites of knowledge production and platforms for educating younger generations and non-Native audiences, highlight complicated cultural issues, tribal heterogeneity, legacies of colonial oppression and settler-colonialism. The diversity in the Native art produced and ways in which traditional forms are reimagined and adapted, express individual artistic style and contemporary Indigeneity, demonstrating the dynamic nature of Native art.

The research then moves on to introduce and investigate the specific Native artworld arenas in LA, and through case studies, illustrates notions of identity, artistic representation and visual sovereignty. This exploration includes analysis of museum and gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles, multiple Native American cultural and public art festivals and events, Powwows, Native on-screen and theatre performances. This artworld is built upon social, political and historical issues, identity, culture, tradition, community, spirituality, connection to the environment and colonialism, all of which continue to inform and shape Native art practices. This multi-modal artworld is hence a domain in which to explore issues of colonial legacies, contested images and stereotypes, issues of identity, belonging and representation, and access to institutions, sovereignty and wealth. The art produced encourages visual sovereignty (autonomy over representation) and reflects contemporary Indigeneity. Simultaneously, the art, artists, and the arenas in which the art is displayed (the artworld), perform a crucial role in the social realm of the urban Native experience in Los Angeles today. Through what I term their aesthetic-return, the art and artistic-based events bring together and strengthen the Native artworld community and contribute to the decolonisation and re-Indigenisation of public spaces which combats issues of colonial legacy exclusions. In other words, the artist creates and gives the art to the public, the art performs its intended agency, the benefit of which is returned to the Native community.

Art production and reception enables Native Americans living in Los Angeles to maintain cultural identity whilst negotiating contemporary urban Indigeneity in the city in lieu of designated/delineated Native neighbourhoods or Native museums or galleries. Consequently, the art also moves beyond expressions of artistic purpose (such as identity claims, political messaging etc.) and is fundamental in the sociality of Native Americans in Los Angeles, a significant way in which Native artworld operates within its social world of LA. The artworld is a key arena in which the Native community engage with each other but also the non-Native public - furthering their mission of raising visibility of their presence in the city today, as well as historically. Furthermore, the visual practices work as platforms to generate Native knowledge production and community engagement, bolstering a sense of belonging, encouraging revitalisation and intergenerational perpetuation of diverse Native culture, spirituality, and art forms.

CLICK TO ENLARGE. 1) Pamela J. Peters (Diné, Navajo) Lost in Translation. 2) Mercedes Dorame (Tongva) installation at Erasure exhibition, Glendale, LA 2018. 3) River Garza (Tongva) Powwow, 2018. 4) Votan Henriquez (Mayan/Nahua) We Are Still Here, 2017. 5) Kit Thomas (Mohawk) Water is Life. 6) Brian Jungen (Dane-Za/Swiss), Totem poles made from sports bags at Palm Springs Art Museum, 2018. 7) Peggy Fontenot (Patawomeck) Beaded Sampler.

I draw on anthropological and sociological concepts of an artworld (production, distribution, reception and context) whilst highlighting the ways the Native artworld differs from non-Indigenous artworlds and thus the variation in art production and meaning and arenas of display and exhibition. My research shows the production of art is inherently tied to Native culture and identity in the city and is often produced reactively, context or issue driven, to a political or social incidence or event, yet this does not diminish artistic agency. Distribution is through temporary sites such as exhibition spaces, at public, political and cultural events, in plays performed by the Native Voices theatre company, and distributed on social media. The Native events discussed in my research were either artistically conceptualised or had an element of art involved in them. Reception manifests predominantly by the Native artworld community which in turn works to unite, increase and strengthen the artworld and pan-Native community in Los Angeles. However, it is important to note, the reception is not always homogeneously positive, with judgement by both Natives and non-Natives based upon authenticity of the artist and subject matter depicted, which I attempt to sensitively and respectfully illustrate.

The Native community of artists is at the centre of the Native artworld with art production intrinsically linked to their cultural world rather than focusing purely on dealers, collectors, auctioneers and museums as seen in other artworlds. Consequently, the art forms part of larger structure of Native community, sociality and relationality, raising visibility, fighting oppressions and misrepresentations, perpetuating of culture and traditions. Despite few aesthetic commonalities, my research demonstrates the interconnectedness of artforms and arenas in which they are produced and displayed. The art works as scaffolds for the Native diaspora in LA socially and politically. Thus, the different media and Native artworld arenas are activated and connected through similar messaging. The art is mostly concerned with reaching Native audiences for purposes of seeing themselves accurately portrayed and represented, as sites of knowledge production and revitalisation, community engagement, and to understand layered meanings and cultural cues in the work dependent on the audience.

Pat Vegas from the rock band Redbone performing "Come and Get Your Love" with his family at Indigenous Peoples' Day LA, 2018.

A significant finding of this research is that hierarchies, tensions and border zones of inclusion versus exclusion and inward versus outwards become apparent both between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community as well as within the Indigenous community, and of course, in relation to access into art spaces and markets. Though in this artworld there appeared to be no hierarchy in terms of higher versus lower regarded forms of art from Native artists, there are clear hierarchies and tensions in relation to the sociality of the artworld. These hierarchies and tensions relate to identity (blood and cultural); being deemed authentic as an artist; producing “authentic” Native work; gender and age; and institutional hierarchies encompassing value, recognition, access and modes of display. Contested Spaces also highlights the politics of identity at play in Los Angeles demonstrating how the Native community is far from homogenous with frictions occurring along three fault-lines of identity which relate to self-identification of a Native identity, Native community involvement, and authenticity of the art produced. These tensions are apparent within the pan-Native community, between the Native community and wider Indigenous diaspora in LA, and between them and the Los Angeles population. Issues faced in relation to visibility, autonomy and representation in the Los Angeles artworld, are mirrored in the broader political relationship between Native Americans and the nation-state/dominant society, as well as the hierarchies and overarching Euro-centric principles of artworlds.

By highlighting these tensions and exclusions, Contested Spaces speaks to discourse of decolonisation and other artworld literature and conversations that focus on access and diversifying broader artworlds and fine art spaces. This Native artworld aims to impact non-Native audiences by increasing critical engagement and dialogue about Native art, raise the visibility of Native presence in Los Angeles and the issues Native people face nationally, historically, and contemporaneously as part of decolonisation and re-education processes – elements that non-ethnic artworlds do not have. Each of my interlocutors told me that producing and seeing art that does this is empowering and a form of art activism and resistance, subverting harmful misconceptions about Native people and Native art. Furthermore, in order to empower themselves and encourage diversity in the artworld, an eco-system of support is produced by the Native artworld community – Native artists using other artists as subjects of their work, artists writing about or promoting other Native artists, Native artists curating their own exhibitions and so on. My research adds to existing calls of decolonising artworld spaces which often ignores and renders invisible contemporary Native American art. This plays into a cyclical structural violence of lack of arts funding, exhibitions, critical reviews and publications. Contested Spaces also emphasises the historic connection of Native Americans to the city both ancestrally, and those who form part of the Native diaspora community showing the importance of decolonising and re-Indigenising the city.

During my fieldwork, arenas of the Native artworld were impactful to different extents. I believe its function of bringing together the Native American community and its impact of cultural identity and representation, more internal/Native focused aims were very effective. However, it is hard to ascertain the impact of the art on the non-Native public because the events were mostly attended by Native audiences. Additionally, without designated Native museums or galleries in the Los Angeles, even neighbourhoods, the presence of Native people in the city goes largely under the radar of the non-Native society. Consequently, the Native artworld does not have a strong presence within the broader artworld of Los Angeles. Rather, the place of the Native art in the city demonstrates an Indigenous layer of Los Angeles that embodies Native community, ancestry, history and cosmological and cultural relationships to the land. In this way, the Native artworld goes beyond a small art network, as it addresses colonial legacies and systemic structural violence issues and as my research illustrates, these artworld practices are the connective tissue binding the culturally diverse and geographically dispersed Indigenous population together in LA.

Contested Spaces has provided platforms for my interlocutors to share their stories and their artwork, highlight the organisational structure and community ties of the Native population in L.A. and has helped to raise recognition and awareness of Native peoples in Los Angeles today. I conducted this research from an outside perspective, an outsider to the Native community as a white British/American dual citizen, and an outsider to the fine art artworld. The majority of this research was conducted in Los Angeles between mid-2018 and mid-2019. This captures a unique and short historic moment and local art history. I hope going forward, through future socio-political climates and dynamic artworlds, the artists continue to achieve success and recognition, and progress towards heightened visibility and inclusion into varied art spaces and wider artworlds.