Beyond Representation

Representation is a curious thing. For the longest time we have been satisfied by pictures of a subject, rather than pictures about that subject or pictures through that subject. We ask for metonymy rather than interpretation, particularly in terms of the works we lift up as our national icons. In order to build an identity and a visual culture, any nation needs a mirroring of itself, and as such, we somewhat desperately cling to the few works that seek to represent Canada. Perhaps, as a young country, we are too easily flattered by the attention of artists.

In this respect, the Group of Seven has served us well. Their paintings of folksy settlements and vast wilderness, read through the vocabulary of European modernism, present exactly the sort of reflection we have always wanted to see. Both new and old, heroic and dynamic, their Canada cannot help but flatter. It is no wonder, therefore, that we have lifted these images up as patriotic symbols, even though these misrepresentations of emptiness may ultimately do us a disservice.

Emily Carr, Big Raven, 1931.

Emily Carr in many ways did even better, painting mysterious totems and First Nations sculptures that not only gave us an identity, but borrowed a history. Her works are steeped in unknown myths, mystery, and elemental power while also serving to introduce aboriginal representations into the larger narrative of Canadian identity. Some eighty years later, however, we may want to re-evaluate our criteria and demands for national self-representation.

In the past, artists and anthropologists have been keen to claim aboriginal art, particularly that of the Pacific Northwest, as Canadian and as part of our collective heritage and visual culture. Marius Barbeau in particular was instrumental in organizing artistic expeditions that sent members of the Group of Seven into Gitxsan territory to incorporate totem poles into their representations of Canada. These paintings, made in ignorance to indigenous beliefs and omitting every trace of their contemporary existence, are only representations of an imagined pre-history. Part of the pleasure in these works is the sense of not knowing, of preserving the mystery, and in turn, clearing the past of ownership so that these powerful objects can be represented as our own. This national appropriation is inevitably tinged with a distinctly colonial mentality.

Emily Carr, Big Eagle, Skidegate BC, c. 1930.

Emily Carr, compared to the Group of Seven, at least seems to be full of good intentions. She was less of a tourist and more of a scholar, gaining some standing in the communities in which she painted. Contemporary native peoples appear in her works far more than those of her peers, and her depictions of the totem forms are respectfully accurate. And yet, we are left with a representation of an object of which we have very little understanding. Detached from history and culture, the totems are floating signifiers, all the more open to appropriation.

And appropriate we have. I remember going to school at Ross Sheppard High, home of the Thunderbirds. There’s a totem pole rather innocuously placed in the front of the school, transplanted from the Pacific to the prairies. It’s rooted in concrete now, after a rival school tried to chop it down (or so the story goes). The history of the pole never surfaced while I was a student there, so I guess it meant whatever we wanted it to convey: school spirit, academics, athletics, or personal growth- all things that never belonged to the Thunderbird’s mythology, I’m sure. My first art class took place there. We sat on the grass and timidly copied the pole’s ovoid faces and shapes, unknowingly following Carr’s dubious precedent.

I think, in some subtle way, Ross Sheppard’s appropriation of the totem pole was made possible by the celebration of Emily Carr’s misinformed depictions. Mere representation, it seems, all too often escapes accountability. When we raised her work to the level of national symbol, we invested the landscapes and objects she depicted with a significance that diverges from their original function. What is reflected back to us in this effigy of Canada is a doctored image rather than a candid self-portrait. If Carr paints nothing more than the mere representation of a totem then we are far too keen to supply meaning that contributes to a self-serving national myth.

In order to resist this appropriation I firmly believe that art must provide its own conceptual content rather than representing a vacuous subject. Art that interprets instead of merely presenting its content can differ meaning and complicate the trajectory of our patriotic narratives. We are far more involved, far more aware of our complicity in the production of meaning, when art stands as a challenge rather than decoration. One contemporary artist who does this with style is, of course, Brian Jungen.

Brian Jungen, Prototypes for New Understanding [excerpt], 1998-2005.

Jungen’s sculptural re-interpretations of aboriginal objects remade through sports equipment may be the perfect antidote to Carr. Masks are fashioned out of Nike Air Jordan sneakers while golf bags form the shapes of totem poles. These works are formally representative of their aboriginal referents, and yet in order to view them one must read this representation through their discordant materials.

Brian Jungen, Untitled, 2007.

Ironically, these works are themselves appropriations. While using Haida forms, Jugen’s heritage is Swiss and Dane-zaa First Nation. Like Emily Carr or my highschool classmates and I, he exists outside Haida culture, looking in. And yet, due to our poor understanding of the diversity of aboriginal cultures, he is often mistaken as ‘authentic’ (this itself being an immensely problematic term). The joke continues when he is called upon to represent Canada internationally, at the Weiner Secession, Sydney Biennial, and in our social studies textbooks.

Nevertheless, the Prototypes go beyond the representation of objects, and enter into the realm of representation through and representation about their subjects. By using Western status symbols such as Nike sneakers and golf bags Jungen quite powerfully makes visible the commodification of aboriginal motifs for the sake of a cultural ‘cool’. His work suggests the lust for identity rather than a stable depiction of that identity itself. Abandoning secondary accounts of a primary artifact, Jungen instead makes visible our tertiary manipulations in the name of appropriated symbols. As Cuauhtémoc Medina puts it, “If they want masks, why not sell them their own reflection?” If we are surprised at what we see, it is because we have not really been looking.

This kind of art, art beyond representation, serves Canada better than images which only provide a backdrop to our desires and ambitions. Art as a corrective measure and a continued negotiation of identity can challenge our self-image rather than affirm our destructive fantasies. The utility of this kind of practice, I think, should not be overestimated, and yet it is often difficult to engage in this kind of work when a banal, self-congratulatory representations more often takes centre stage. I hope that, as we continue to place new demands on what constitutes our national myths and iconic artworks, we call for more than mere representation, decorated in whatever style is fashionable in the art world at the time. There are more interesting narratives to build and tensions to induce than to reduce art to representation of a thing or a place, catalogued neatly into an order of unchanging sentiment.

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