Kent Monkman: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)

By Ann C. Collins

FEB 2020 | ArtSeen

It may be that history, as Winston Churchill said, is written by the victors, but a deep satisfaction can be had for those who redraft it. Cree artist Kent Monkman does just that for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s inaugural Great Hall Commission. Monkman reverses the European gaze, presenting Indigenous people as heroes who welcome and rescue invading newcomers.

Colored People Time: Quotidian Pasts

By Devin Malone

JUL-AUG 2019 | ArtSeen

A group of white sculptures sit atop glistening aluminum pedestals. To the right, two TV screens flash images of dancers, ritual objects, and footage from a post-war game show. An adjacent wall has been painted green to mimic the palette of a natural history museum and bears a single photograph.

Journey to a “People's War”

By Thomas Dai

JUL-AUG 2020 | Field Notes

Some years ago, I stopped in Wuhan on my way to somewhere else. The city looked unremarkable to me, another heavy, Chinese metropolis split in two by a dying river. I remember the owner of my hostel stopping by to take my payment and photocopy my passport. Afterwards, he left for dinner, and I did the same, walking down to the Yangtze to sit on its grassy banks.

Go Forth

By Kaneza Schaal

DEC 20-JAN 21 | Critics Page

My father died in Burundi. Everyone brought their own version of him to the funeral. At the burial ceremony, as part of a ritualized grieving process, I was struck by the continuum of processing and performing death, and the intimacy between Black people and death around the world.