FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved
| Visual Arts by Anne Severson Bob Boyer: Connection to Collections Go and look at Metis artist Bob Boyer’s candid celebration of his own personal First Nations’ voice through his most recent transitional paintings. This deceptively enlightening, abstruse exhibition is in response to Glenbow’s most unusual open invitation to Boyer to investigate and record his reactions to the museum’s collections. The warmth of Boyer’s installation invites the viewer to experience six richly coloured fresco paintings on burlap, overglazed with oil to heighten the colour brilliance. The paintings have been created with a traditional First Nations’ historical fresco technique that goes back to the 9th century Maya of Bonampak, 12th century Aztec and, more recently, the Pueblo of the American Southwest. Comfortable chairs lure you into sitting down, and initially all seems well when viewing what appears to be Boyer’s disjointed parade of over 50 slides from the Glenbow’s art, ethnology and archives collection. If you allow your mind to practice free association, the mixture of the passing images will provide insight into Boyer’s creative mind and a link to his painted works on the wall. And it becomes very discomforting. The creative process starts to unravel as the viewer makes connections between the quickly passing images of a wounded buffalo, oil derricks and brightly coloured, romanticized paintings of a fly-fisherman in an idealistic pre-industrial landscape. Boyer’s painting of Communion can be viewed as a cultural memory of the wounded sacred white buffalo, with peace pipes unsuccessfully offered to those who came to "share" this land. These are significant symbols of communication to help the viewer link a distressing past with the unsettling present. The soft, soothing colours and curving lines of Take This Land (page 95 1936/37) could lead the viewer to think this is abstract flower painting. Instead, further research into the title can lead one to perceive this as representative of a scorching centuries-long moral indignation from the time when the land was taken without concern for already existing human beings and their culture. The inspiration for this painting is an archival "Prosperity Certificate" from 1936/37 illustrated on page 95 of Treasures of the Glenbow Museum. The Northern Plains’ abstraction in the painting pertains to the earlier occupants of this land. This is an unparalleled statement on the land and its relationship to native people and their culture in the past and in the present. There is no overt mention of the First Nations’ ties to the land, except by implication. As Boyer phrases it, "Indians were in the way" of linear-type progress and prosperity above the concerns of another people’s humanity. With this art, Boyer could be pointing out the communal "white guilt" of historical mistakes in our land. People living today cannot undo these wrongdoings, nor should they feel guilty about a past that they had no control over. But one possible consideration for future direction is to listen, as in this exhibition, to First Nations’ voices seeking self-determination for their almost-destroyed culture. Boyer respectfully asks: "listen to native voices and hear what they have to say. Being native doesn’t mean they are right, any more than history means it is right." In Boyer’s significant, thought-provoking letter that is included in the exhibition, mixed reactions to this Glenbow opportunity can add clarity, confusion or anger, depending on the reader. Another examination and consideration of this message can add to empathetic understanding of history’s complexities. Boyer states that he personally enjoys museum collections as they "fed my self-image, my knowledge" as a member of First Nations’ culture. His self-respect is somewhat offset as he considers the historical methods of plunder that built up private collections by participants that willfully created "a dying race." Quite rightly, it is in this manner that Boyer uses the words "colonialism" as the system that extends its influence over another culture or territory, and "imperialism," which is to rule and command with authority. This was not done benevolently in our country. Boyer doesn’t say his paintings are political, but can you hear what he is saying? The Glenbow should be commended for pursuing strong, explorative and controversial methods in evaluating this complex issue. |
| Back To This Issue Table of Contents | Back To Main Index |