RUBENSTEIN: In UM 'settler art' purge, anything goes as long as it's indigenous?

For years now, Western universities have been preoccupied with “decolonizing” their curricula and symbols by replacing European perspectives with indigenous ones.Not wanting to be left behind in this effort, the University of Manitoba is now frantically “decolonizing its art collection, replacing problematic paintings and sculptures with contemporary Indigenous art,” part of a much larger truth and reconciliation framework to “Make UM an institution enriched by Indigenous knowledges and perspectives.”Why is this taking place? Because “The university is ultimately a colonial institution that is designed to serve white people ... and that needs to change," said C.W. Brooks-Ip, registrar and preparator of the University of Manitoba Art Collection, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Great Britain voluntarily ended colonialism in 1867 by uniting four of its colonies, namely Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.“We have had artwork that is by a white settler that depicts indigenous folks in not really an accurate way, in sort of the mythologized way, that in some ways glorifies the white settlers — or at least reinforces their white supremacy,” Brooks-Ip complained.Translation: Now is the time for indigenous supremacy instead.Brooks-Ip created the Indigenous Student Led Indigenous Art Purchase Program, a two-year pilot project with funds from the school's Office of the Vice-President (Indigenous) that aims to fight against this alleged white colonial settler supremacy.The group of indigenous students meets with artists and curators, visits studios, and recommends artwork to purchase. It’s submitted 24 proposals for paintings, prints, physical pieces and an etching by artists, including Kent Monkman.Monkman is a well-known multi-dimensional artist of Cree ancestry who attended various “white privilege” Canadian and US art schools and other institutions, including the Banff Centre, the Sundance Institute, and Oakville’s Sheridan College where he studied classical European artistic techniques.Monkman deals with subversive, satirical, and comic themes but these are generally expressed in a transparently European fashion. .Perhaps his best known painting is “Hanky Panky” which depicts Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, restrained and on all fours with his pants down as Monkman's alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, approaches him from behind holding up a red sex toy in the shape of praying hands. Monkman generated controversy by suggesting that the rape scene was a consensual act, but later apologized for “any harm that was caused by the work.”As the painting shows, Monkman is a workmanlike artist with a vivid imagination, but he is an aboriginal artist in name only who excels in the use of culturally appropriating Western styles, materials, and themes to craft rebellious depictions of his version of historical and contemporary anti-Indigenous oppression.Conversely, one of the “problematic paintings” removed from display by Brooks-Ip was a painting taken from the university president's office and placed in storage. It was a work by Lionel Stephenson, a prolific artist who lived in Winnipeg between 1885 and 1892.His evocative but “problematic” painting found here shows Upper Fort Garry on one side of the Red River, with an Indigenous person sitting outside a teepee on the other shore.“It's kind of depicting a ‘We’re over here and they're over there’ type situation,” Thomas said. “It's not showing community and togetherness.”This is a rather curious criticism in an age when “community and togetherness,” otherwise known as assimilation, is under non-stop attack by indigenous activists on and off campus.If the University of Manitoba is determined to “decolonize” its art collection, it needs to recognize there are scores of skilled indigenous artists like Monkman employing “colonial” technology and styles, even as they focus on Aboriginal themes, an inevitable result of 500 years of intimate culture contact and the exchange of ideas.Conversely, there is a huge inventory of indigenous-themed art produced by generations of sympathetic and highly gifted non-indigenous artists who have brilliantly succeeded in capturing Aboriginal understandings in their workThe goal of “an institution enriched by Indigenous knowledges and perspectives” by hyper-privileging the art of indigenous painters is a foolishly chimerical one.Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba, and a senior fellow, Frontier Centre for Public Policy.