Native American Art Post-War Native Term Paper

Such a confrontational strategy represents a subversion of the Modernist paradigm that supposedly views the work of art as being separate from the viewing experience. When dealing with a live human being presented as an "object," however, one is forced to question that stance of critical distance, as it dissolves in front of our very eyes.

Of course, a history of Native Americans' engagement with Modernism would require a much longer essay - probably even an entire volume. Instead, what we hope to have managed in this short piece is to provide some insights into the ways in which the Modernist paradigm has constantly been challenged by the work of Native American artists throughout the post-war period. The ironic thing is that a lot of this work would fit quite comfortably into the Western canon, as it has been traditionally constructed by Euro-American discourse. At the same time, these artists are coming from a place of exclusion from that canon by virtue of their ethnic identity, which they nevertheless have sought out novel ways of asserting through their work.

Fig. 1. Comrade in Mourning by Allan Houser (1949)

Fig. 2. White Man's Moccasins by Lee H. Marmon (1954)

Figure 3. The End of the Trail by Fritz Scholder (1970)

Figure 4. Self-Portrait in the Studio by T.C. Cannon (1975)

Figure 5. Artifact Piece by James Luna (1987)

Bibliography

Rushing, W. Jackson III, ed. Native American Art in the Twentieth Century.…