Kent Monkman
really excited to write about this artist, monkman's one of my favorite artists of the moment !!
post-colonial 'cowboys & indians' games in drag explore political, social and sexually charged narratives in what monkman calls the "queer frontier", which makes that other hudson river valley stuff seem pretty boring. layers of meaning can be teased out of these scenes with recurring characters like 'miss chief' and socio/economic/political motifs create another world for us to indulge and figure out.
half the fun is figuring things out. monkman loves to reference other well known contemporary and modern artists, and infuses greek mythology and sculpture into his narratives. he clearly marks himself as a man of culture, sharp wit, and over-stuffs his audience with action, visual cues and greater social questions. it's almost impossible not to see new things every time you revisit his work especially because his works are so large, some exceeding a hundred inches in length.
the voyeuristic component of his work doesn't go unnoticed. his characters become visual studies for other characters in his work: they paint scenes en plein air and in artist's studios of each other and shoot themselves on film. the viewer too is apart of the voyeurism and becomes complexed in the interplay of gazes, further unlocking imagery and ideas of the psycho-sexual id.
here's a list of monkman's fun refs, let me know what you find and i'll post it!
Fountain (Duchamp) - The Triumph of Mischief
Sunday in the Park - (seurat) sunday afternoon
Christ imagery / Lance of Longinus - Artist and Model
Laocoön (finished by Michelangelo)- The Academy
Pygmalion and Galatea (Jean Leon-Gerome) - Si je t'aime prends garde a toi (Study for Icon for a New Empire)
Thomas Kinkade - Duel after the Masquerade
Louis Vuitton quivers and suitcases - Charged Particles in Motion
LV graffiti ?? - Daniel Boone's First View of the Kentucky Valley
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (Jaques-Louis David) - The Trapper's Bride
other greek myths/characters:
hermes the trickster, the death of adonis, achilles and patroclus, hyacinth
found this punk rock//heavy metal band using The Triumph of Mischief as their album cover! um yea this is what death metal looks like ok??
[via Stephen Friedman Gallery in London, Galerie Florent Tosin in Berlin, Bailey Fine Arts in Toronto, and Trepanier Baer Gallery in Calgary]
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