Indian Artists in Venice: Off the Traditional Path

Luna: It's a starting point that maybe other artists would have to work up to. I can use people's preconceived ideas -- ideas that other, non-Indian artists can't be as effective with from the get-go. I think there are all kinds of possibilities with this material. When I look at certain native groups out there, doing their thing on a Western stage, I usually walk away shaking my head, because I don't think they quite take it to where it could go. They end up doing something close to performing for the white folks -- dancing for them . That's okay, but that isn't it . If you're going to be on a Western stage, I think there's a challenge to do something that speaks to that stage, and that tradition.

Gopnik: Which is now part and parcel of being a native person in North America.

Luna: We live in both worlds. There's just no getting away from that. And if you think we don't, then you're kind of in denial.

Belmore: There's still this interest [among aboriginal artists] in hanging out together and doing work together -- and I think that's a good thing, and normal. But at the same time, as an artist, once you get to a certain level you question whether it's a good thing to be in an Indian show. Is it good to be labeled, or not? What should you call yourself?

Gopnik: James, in the catalogue for your Venice show, curator Paul Chaat Smith asked a question that I thought was interesting: "Are we allowed to invent completely new ways of being Indian that have no connection to previous ways we have lived?" Can you imagine a world in which one is Indian, but not in relation to the past in any way?

Luna: I'm not a fortuneteller. But it would be wrong to say that we should stay where we are, culturally. That never happens. Cultures evolve. Where might we have been had the white man never come to the Americas? Would we have turned the cities we had into megacities? Would we be competitive with the modern Western world, if we hadn't been dominated and slaughtered?

Gopnik: Rebecca, have you ever made a work as a mature artist that didn't address Indianness in any way?

Belmore: Many of my works can look like they have nothing to do with my Indianness, but when I look at them, I see it. I am who I am, and I bring my experience and my identity. But I think it's great when people don't necessarily see it. That means they can relate to [a piece] as an artwork. They don't necessarily have to know that it was made by me.

Gopnik: James, you once described yourself to me as "one of America's oldest emerging artists." Does the presence of the two of you at the Venice Biennale mean that native artists are no longer doomed always to be emerging?

Luna: Well, my phone isn't exactly ringing off the hook!

Belmore: Mine neither!

Luna: Time will tell. This is a benchmark in my career. It's going to help my [curriculum] vitae. My prices have gone up. But I'm not going to let it change me. I'm just going to forge ahead in doing what I do, and not all the sudden start making work for the smart European crowd, or for the money. I can't change the system, but the system won't change me.

Belmore: I don't know if I've made any giant steps for aboriginal artists. But at least I can say, "Been there. Done that."

Luna: I think there are a lot of great native artists that people need to see. And it's unfortunate that there aren't more venues for them. Being an outsider, it takes longer for people to put the difference aside and just look at [your work] as art. But [Vancouver native artist] Brian Jungen is going to be having a solo show at the New Museum [in New York], and I don't think they're billing it as a "native" show.

I think there's progress. Is it a little slow? Yeah, it's a little slow. But at least it's progress -- at least we're staggering forward.

To see more work by Belmore and Luna, visithttp://www.washingtonpost.com/museums.