It's about time that Native American artists start getting recognition and support for their work, apart from the media representations by non-Native folks. But I’m not a Cherokee artist or Indian artist, no more than Brancusi was a Romanian artist.” (Brancusi was born in Romania.) But it also sounds a whole lot like that time "Iron Eyes Cody," the actor in the infamous 1970s "Crying Indian: Keep America Beautiful" PSA video who earned a number of roles on the premise that he was Native American, was "outed" as second-generation Italian. In a recentĪrticle, Durham admits, “I am perfectly willing to be called Cherokee. The controversy is complex, as Durham was a fervent activist with the American Indian Movement in the '70s, and his work has always relied on themes of Native American identity and the destructive nature of colonization. His fabrications insult not only us but also the other tribes whose cultures Durham has misappropriated." Throughout his career, he has misrepresented other’s tribes’ practices (giveaways, vision quests, Trickster Coyote, feasts of the dead) and said they are Cherokee. , contributors write that "Durham continues to misrepresent Cherokee language, history, and culture. Durham's recent retrospective at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has sparked a massive controversy, as multiple Cherokee artists and curators claim that Durham is not in fact recognized by any of the three Cherokee nations. He has historically identified with Cherokee descent (along with a bizarre slew of celebrities including Johnny Depp, Cher, Miley Cyrus, and Johnny Cash), and this identity is a central aspect of his work. In case you missed it: Durham has long been regarded as the central, or at least the most well-known figure of Native American Art. Conflating Native American cultures disregards this diversity, and effectually silences Native American voices.Ĭontroversy so complicated. Amongst those tribes exists a great deal of diversity in culture, language, and elements of day-to-day life such as food preparation and dress. There are 567 federally recognized Native American nations in the United States. Contemporary multi-disciplinary artist Merritt Johnson, a descendant of the Blackfoot and Kanienkehaka Tribes, writes that most people think of “beads and feathers” when they hear the term "Native American art." This pigeonholing, among being immensely generalized and demeaning, fails to the acknowledge unique individual expression between and within Native American communities. Pop culture and design loves to appropriate grossly stereotypical elements of percieved Native American cultures (do I really need to bring up Coachella?), learned from normalized racially insensitive media portrayals such as the "Piccaninny Tribe" in Disney's
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