Brian Jungen Exhibit Review

Brian Jungen Exhibit Review
by 0018922

Good God, everybody loves Brian Jungen right now. I sure wish I wasn't so boring, but I love him too. This exhibit, it was a chance for me to see in person many of the works that I had heard described and in photographs over the years. I've been a fan since I took an aboriginal [NDN] art history class with Dana Claxton. His humour is unmistakable, as is his approachability, and polished aesthetic.

I went to the show on the members opening night and it was packed - literally - the lobby of the Vancouver Art Gallery was like a crowded summer concert: lot's of students. And of course, Jungen did graduate from Emily Carr; he has lots of local fans.

His body of work is very relevant to the themes of this multiples course. Not all of his works are multiples, but most of them question what is unique, or betray it. I see him using the products of our mass production society, consumer products, as if they were the raw materials of nature used by NDNs in bygone days. His work is conceptually genius. This was the first overview collection of all his works.

A great example of this is the 'teepee' made specifically for this exhibition in the gallery out of black leather sofas. The process was helpfully documented in a 20 minute silent video. The furniture piece was slit open, gutted and skinned, as would a buffalo, one can imagine. All parts of the sofas were used, just as all parts of the animal might be as part of a spiritual reverence. The bones of the sofa, the wooden frame, is rebuilt into the tent poles and pegs that fasten the doorway. Actually, he might not have used and sofa stuffing or springs. Or maybe they were cushions inside? The smell of the piece was excellently gross, it permeated the whole room like a yuppie furniture shop.

The shoes are his most famous bit, entitled Prototype for New Understanding. These were nice to see in person, displayed in cases as if anthropological artefact. I noticed he used some rivets in construction. There are 23 of them, the number of Michael Jordan that was frequently embroidered on the original Nike Air Jordans that begot the 90s sneaker phenomenon. Jordan is said to have purchased one of the masks.

I noticed he left the pricetag labels on the lawnchairs. This was for the gigantic whale sculptures, all 3 of which - Shapeshifter (2000), Cetology (2002) and Vienna (2003) - were hung as if floating weightlessly. These are imposing pretences, revellers tended to hang around them. The VAG children's section focused on these and the material connection. Fossil fuels are used in the plastic chairs and in the fossil whale skeleton represented.

I liked being able to see the cedar wood warehouse palettes. This is a sort of inverse of the tepee conceptually. By using fine red cedar as this waste material packaging product, he uses NDN natural materials to create consumable items. The difference from this and a normal palette is it is even more fine wood than normal and it is finished so beautifully. A very sad and stirring piece simply about waste.

The wall carving one was great. He had researched what non-native people would draw as typically 'Indian' representations. The typical stereotypes of a tepee, a canoe, a tomahawk and a crude totem were displayed next to a beer and Lysol bottle drawing. These crude images were carved into the pristine white gallery walls with a plunge router. It was like real archaeology how you could see the layers of colour in between the layers of white paint; I knew one layer was certainly the massive change exhibit [which I hated] and that was exciting to give a sense of place. The reversal here was of the question 'who is primitive?' Clearly the non-native carvings were base.

Those were the more successful pieces. For others, I'm not sure about how effective the concepts are without the little write up plaque to explain. I went in with a lot of stories in my head already. Many don't need the explanation, such as the shoes, they are intriguing just to look at and understand in that way.

The pile of cafeteria trays on a palette was conceptually intriguing but without the write up was a bit weak. This one is about prisons and inside it is a TV hidden. It's a great story when you know it but the TV is too well hidden and with his refined cedar freight palette supporting the stack it just looks like a material form.

I thought the baseball bat talking sticks could have been better displayed they were a bit didactic. They are a bit American. Hockey sticks might work better up here? Or is that too Molson?

Finally, the Beer Cooler (2002) was again a stage of natural interactive conceptual performance. This it was displayed, it was guarded. An imposing gallery guard, just for the finely carved plastic beer cooler said we could open and look inside but not take a beer. A friend of mine got into an argument with him about that and even called on one of the co-curator types who agreed that Jungen's intent that the beer was meant to be drunk and spoil the environment of the gallery. But I guess the guard really felt his duty was to protect the beer.

Jungen's NDN themes are always a bit of a joke. He references the traditional but also mocks it by being only vague in presentation. Some of the Nike masks resemble Darth Vader, not any specific traditional mythology. Not really being accurate he plays with stereotype.
He doesn't call himself a 'native artist' because what he makes is for the display case or gallery and not ceremonial integrated social usage. On the other hand, even this is a critical stance because maybe he is critical of how we know NDN art mostly through museums and sterilised from its cultural context. Art or Artefact?

I think his work is very hot right now as the politics of NDNs is coming to enter the popular consciousness. We will see a lot more NDN/hybrid art in the future and this will be good: the Vancouver airport versions of Bill Reid and our $20 bill. Like in New Zealand, those are offensive to some NDNs not because of the art itself, but because of the simulation it provides of a just integrated society. In fact we still have NDN Reserves with apartheid like racial legal divisions, extreme poverty among many aboriginal communities, and mostly live on illegally occupied unresolved land claims land. And the NDN wars aren't over if you look at examples close to home of Oka, Gustafsen lake, Cheam, Sun Peaks, or up near Squamish the Elaho. So representing to tourists with token high priced aboriginal our political correctness is a falsehood.
Jungen through all of this portrays a sense of humour. He exhibits the 'trickster spirit' and thus I would certainly classify him as among the great NDN artists of this land.

"Award Winners and Nominees - 2002." Sobey Art Award. The Sobey Art Foundation. 01 Mar. 2006
<http://www.sobeyartaward.ca/winners/2002.htm>

"Brian Jungen." Vancouver Art Gallery. 01 Mar. 2006