Indian Artists in Venice: Off the Traditional Path

Gopnik: James, did anyone read your performance as a traditional folk form of Indian culture?

Luna: They always do. Because, even though it's tongue in cheek, part of the attraction is that I take my structure from a ceremony. But [my work] is not a ceremony, it's a performance. There are moments when I catch the audience out of the corner of my eye, and see them tear up: "Oh my God, it's an Indian," [they say]. And I kind of chuckle to myself.

But after all the Indian hoopla, [I hope] they'll just talk about the piece as a piece -- I'm waiting for that, but I haven't got it yet, or only a few times in my career. And I'm hoping this will happen with the Venice Biennale. We weren't at the [Biennale] by fluke, or just because we're Indian, but because we've earned this.

[The work] isn't just about native identity. It's never been just about that. It's about being human and being perceived as different, or being different, in this world.

Belmore: In my piece, when the blood is tossed up onto the screen, it's not only about my Indian history. It's about the history of this [North American] land. It's our history. It's a two-way relationship: It's not just about me; it's about me and you. It's about the people who came here from Europe.

Gopnik: James, you once said that people tend to come to native culture looking for higher truths -- for shamanism and things like that. Did you find that people were expecting magic from your work in Venice?

Luna: That's always there. People come up with these really oddball questions, particularly about religion -- wanting "The Word" from me. It's really an invasion of my privacy. I'm not up there to share my religious beliefs with anybody.

Gopnik: You are two of the most important native artists in North America. What has been your experience of making actively contemporary art in a native context? Is there an element within the native community that has a problem with installation art, with video, with performance? That expects baskets and blankets?

Belmore: I sometimes get asked to do workshops within my own community. Being out here on the West Coast, and not being from West Coast [native] culture, a lot of people come to a workshop and expect carving. And I don't know how to carve anything! It's very hard work to get them to come around -- but eventually they do. People can understand issues, they have life experience, they can understand our situation as aboriginal people. Once I start to talk about my work, and show [images], they get what it's about. Maybe the form is weird for them or difficult, but essentially, they understand.

Luna: I do see fear in the eyes of, let's say, "semi-traditional" artists. I'm the big-name artist, and I'm up there giving a talk, and they think that I'm going to say that they're wrong. But when I finally finish, I'm talking about issues that they're not talking about in their pottery, so they need not fear me. In fact, I see them smile, because I'm talking about topics that are close to them at home. They're thinking that I'm going to tell them how to be Indian. But once they hear me, and see what I'm doing, even though it's in a modern form, they see that it's accessible.

[Native] artists who lean toward traditional work may be shaking their heads about me possibly putting them down. But when push comes to shove, they're making a hell of a lot more money than I am. I was in Santa Fe, [N.M.,] and these painter friends of mine were saying, "You got that review in Artforum [magazine]. That was so great." They were sort of envious of me. And I said, "Now, if I could just sell one painting a year like you do, and live off it, I'd really be happy."

Gopnik: You're both making work within the mainstream of Western contemporary art that deals with native issues. Would it make sense to talk about native art that could somehow be apart from that mainstream? Is there something about Indianness, about the aboriginal condition, that could actually create a new way of making art? I was interested in the performative aspect of your work, James, and its links to ritual. Does the tradition of ritual in native art give native artists something to work with that other artists wouldn't have?