American Indian artist T.C. Cannon’s work reflects still-current conflicts

The poignancy and tension that run through artist Cannon’s art speak to a larger discussion going on today as the United States grapples with thorny questions of ethnic identity, land rights, and cultural heritage.

|
THOSH COLLINS
T.C. CANNON’S ‘HIS HAIR FLOWS LIKE A RIVER’

T.C. Cannon’s impressive body of work that explored his American Indian cultural identity, primarily during the tumultuous backdrop of the 1960s and ’70s, is on display in an exhibition, “T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America,” at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Mass., from March 3 to June 10. The exhibition moves to Tulsa, Okla., in July and New York in March 2019.

Drawing on his experience as a Vietnam War veteran, Cannon infuses his work with personal and political themes that still resonate. The exhibition features almost 90 pieces, including paintings, poetry, and music. “Through Cannon’s figurative work, he rejected the accepted, expected representations of Native ritual life and instead chose to surface issues of the brutal traumas wrought by colonialism and power dynamics,” Karen Kramer, PEM’s curator of Native American and Oceanic art and culture, said in a statement. 

The poignancy and tension that run through Cannon’s art speak to a larger discussion going on today. As the United States grapples with thorny questions of ethnic identity, land rights, and cultural heritage, American Indian stories and activism are at the center. 2017 saw the release of “Wind River,” a film about the murder of a local woman on a Wyoming Indian reservation, and “Tribal Justice,” a documentary about tradition-based tribal courts. Both films won awards from the American Indian Film Institute. Meanwhile, the acclaimed book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” by David Grann, recounts how members of the Osage tribe were cheated out of their oil-rich land and killed. And tribes have protested the incursion of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline on or near their lands, while others are suing the Trump administration over its decision to reduce federally protected land at Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument. 

Although separated by decades, Cannon’s art and the work of modern storytellers are inextricably tied to the historical saga of American Indians.   

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to American Indian artist T.C. Cannon’s work reflects still-current conflicts
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2018/0227/American-Indian-artist-T.C.-Cannon-s-work-reflects-still-current-conflicts
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe