Kent Monkman: History Is Painted by the Victors - by Léuli Eshrā & ghi & John P Lukavic (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Kent Monkman: History is Painted by the Victors presents the renowned Canadian artist's most iconic works, which challenge the art history of settler cultures, reframe historical and contemporary Indigenous experiences, and explore themes of gender and sexuality, environmental protection, and the impact of governmental policies on historically marginalized communities. One of Canada's most renowned artists, Monkman challenges the art history of settler cultures that colonized and erased First Peoples from this continent's art history, but he does so by absorbing many influences from the canon of European and Euro-American painting to reframe historical, contemporary, and speculative future Indigenous experiences. Monkman takes inspiration from the artworks of numerous Western artists, including George Catlin and Albert Bierstadt, and from the Old Masters, such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens. His monumental history paintings canonize Indigenous experiences and honor what Chippewa theorist Gerald Vizenor aptly describes as Indigenous survivance, at once the material and spiritual conditions of survival and resistance-in the futures seeded today, the present survived right now, and the pasts that coalesce in us all despite received grand narratives"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The renowned Cree artist unmasks a whitewashed, Eurocentric history through provocative paintings full of sexuality and drama

Published with Denver Art Museum and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

One of Canada's most renowned artists, interdisciplinary Cree artist Kent Monkman challenges the art historical narrative of settler cultures that colonized First Peoples from North America. He incorporates influences from the canon of European and Euro-American painting, reframing historical, contemporary and speculative future Indigenous experiences. Taking inspiration from Western artists such as George Catlin, as well as from the Old Masters, Monkman's monumental history paintings feature white colonizers in violent conflict with Indigenous people. The depictions range from early colonial encounters to modern and contemporary clashes between Indigenous communities and uniformed police or clergy. In borrowing the visual language of his oppressors, Monkman reclaims the narrative written by Western art history about the brutalization and cultural genocide carried out against Indigenous North American communities.
History is Painted by the Victors accompanies the artist's first major exhibition in the United States. The catalog gathers rich analysis of Monkman's art from prominent scholars, expanding our understanding of his oeuvre and offering new insight via queer theory, historical and contemporary contexts, visual analysis and lived experience.
Kent Monkman was born in 1965 in Ontario, Canada and is a member of Fisher River Cree First Nation in Treaty 5 Territory. Monkman's works have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Hayward Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art, Palais de Tokyo and many more. He is the author of two bestselling novels, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Volumes 1 and 2, which are based on his gender-fluid alter ego who often appears in Monkman's work as a time-traveling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples. He lives and works in New York City and Toronto.

Review Quotes

A trickster of imagery, Monkman has famously inserted new narratives into museums the world over, spaces that long excluded First Nations stories and imagery. His paintings play with the European Old Master tradition and insert humor and sexuality in ways that make you reconsider the dynamics of the source imagery.--Hrag Vartanian "Hyperallergic"

The robust essays in this catalog for an exhibition that is jointly organized by the Denver Art Museum and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts are an illuminating read, as they linger on his major history paintings and situate them in the context of Romantic and Neoclassical history paintings. Monkman's work lends itself well to deep readings; it has an easy illustrative style that never gets in the way of the content but piques wonder and awe all the same.--Hrag Vartanian "Hyperallergic"

[In this exhibition] Monkman's artistic brilliance achieves its greatest height--Chadd Scott "Forbes"

[Kent Monkman] is known for his monumental canvases featuring Indigenous protagonists that offer a new perspective on the history painting genre.--Ted Loos "The New York Times"

Few contemporary artists challenge the narratives of Western art history as provocatively and playfully as Kent Monkman.--Kate Brown "Artnet"

With the lives of migrants, trans people, and many other minorities now under renewed assault, it's the perfect time to imagine a world organized beyond settler states. Monkman opens a path for us all to get there.--Sarah Stryker "Bookforum"