White Carver by Nicholas Galanin, performed by Perry Hohlstein

White Carver is an ongoing performance reflecting the legacy of appropriation and demonstration in Indigenous art, particularly by non-Indigenous individuals. Mimicry of Indigenous culture has homogenized North West Coast visual languages to generate capital without benefit to the Indigenous communities responsible for developing these art forms. Galanin’s work reverses the gaze toward the White Carver, modeled after the fetishization Indigenous artists and cultures are subjected to by non-Indigenous markets and consumers. The piece is built around the labor of an unnamed white man who is attempting to replicate Galanin’s work; the White Carver’s own reputation and enforced privilege is built on the attempted destruction of the culture he is now imitating.

The installation separates the figure of the White Carver from the viewer and the work that he attempts to re-create with a velvet rope. Outside the rope, a vitrine contains I Looooooove Your Culture, Fine Woodworking (2012), a yellow-cedar masturbation tool hand-carved by Nicholas Galanin. The cedar carving, done with traditional materials and tools, makes clear the intersection of cultural fetish with sexual fetish—each targets desire for a single part of an otherwise ignored and devalued whole. Galanin’s carving is mistaken by the White Carver for a customary object to be mined as a resource.

As part of the exhibition, Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, on view through November 26.

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For more information, call 845-758-7598, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art

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