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New Age, white clay, 2003, by Pahpone

The show Chapman is referring to is “Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation” at the Weisman Art Museum, an exhibition of contemporary Native North American art from the West, Northwest, and Pacific. The traveling exhibition, which originated at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, includes more than 100 works by Native artists from the Great Plains, West Coast, western Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii.

From glass, bronze, and video works to jewelry, textiles, and sculpture crafted from wood, feathers, or whale bone, the exhibition “runs the gamut from purely aesthetic objects to thought-provoking, intellectual works that require close, attentive viewing,” Chapman says. On November 20, Chapman provides critical perspectives on the show with Minneapolis artist Todd Bockley, who organized the 2000 Weisman show, “Listening with the Heart: Frank Big Bear, George Morrison, Norval Morrisseau.”

One of the most provocative objects in the exhibition is Land O Bucks, Land O Fakes, Land O Lakes, in which David Bradley (originally from Minneapolis) re-contextualizes the iconic Indian-maiden logo on a butter package. In the exhibition catalog, Bradley writes, “For 500 years, non-Indians have stolen our land and resources, and now that Indian identity has become a marketable commodity, they want to steal that, too. I say no, enough is enough.”

Judy Chartrand’s shelf of Campbell’s soup cans with the labels “Turnip,” “Moose Nose,” or “Hangover” references pop artist Andy Warhol’s famous silk-screened images, but with a twist. As Chartrand

Memory Prom Dress, printed digital images of paper, mixed media, 2003, by C. Maxx Stevens (Images courtesy of the Weisman Art Museum)

writes: “[M]uch of my work confronts issues of colonization, assimilation, and identity politics. . . . In resistance to these stereotypical identifications, I am reinventing some of these labels in accordance with my way of knowing and understanding the world.”

Unlike many other large exhibitions of contemporary Native art, Chapman says, “This one isn’t based around a silly, tedious theme, like ‘We hate Columbus,’ ‘We hate Custer,’ or ‘Honoring this or that.’ ” The works aren’t grouped by technique or tribe either.

Instead, the show is organized into four sections: “The Human Condition,” “Material Evidence,” “Beyond Function,” and “Nature as Subject.” This “puts the art in an art context rather than in an ethnographic or anthropological context,” explains Weisman curator Diane Mullin. “Each of the artists is looking at their own Native traditions and identity, but pushing and contemporizing those boundaries conceptually or with materials.”

Take a Picture with a Real Indian, for instance, is a videotape of James Luna’s original piece of performance art in which the artist, costumed in stereotyped garb—bare-chested and wearing a loincloth—challenges his mostly white audience to join him in a photograph. “It’s a low-tech tape of the performance,” Mullin says, “but the tension in the room among the people he’s addressing is palpable. It’s very confrontational and an intriguing use of the medium of performance art.”

“It’s important for people to see the wide range of creative impetus that exists in Native art and see Native artworks they’ve never experienced before,” Chapman says. “Each of these art objects can stand on its own. But what’s truly wonderful about ‘Changing Hands’ is its diversity.”

“Changing Hands: Art without Reservation” runs through January 13, 2008, at the Weisman Art Museum, 333 E. River Road, on the East Bank of the Minneapolis campus. For more information, go to www.weisman.umn.edu or call 612-625-9494. —Camille LeFevre