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August Brave Heart Sanchez

Mrs. Janet Hartranft
INART 496 Independent Study
Sunday, September 13, 2015
A model of Identity in American Indian and American Societies
American Indian art

in relation to Contemporary

Art has always been concerned with the biggest questions. Artist grapple with questions
such as what does it mean to be human? Why are we here? What is next? Who am I?
What does it mean to be who I am? These are all horribly large questions, yet artists are able to
portray their thoughts on the subjects through paintings, media instillations, video, and other
visual media. Questions of identity became more prevalent in the contemporary period of art,
from approximately 1980 to the present. While mainstream contemporary artists dealt with the
problem of identity, mainly in the 1990s, American Indian artists were doing similar work since
the 1960s, and the two separate paradigms they created came out to be both wonderfully similar,
but non-analogous.
Identity in American art is a fickle thing to discuss. Few artists deal directly with the
topic of identity, and those who did have, for the most part moved on. Identity in America, as a
paradigm for thought, works fundamentally differently than Indigenous thoughts on the same
topic. For Americans, identity works as a binary. One is either American or not. American-ness is
determined by two aspects, geographic location and acceptance of the American Value System
(AVS).
America is unique in that foreigners can immigrate to the United States of America and
after a certain amount of time, be Americans both legally and culturally. Merely by being in
America long enough and wanting to assimilate one can identify as American. During that time
one can choose to make America become their home, and relinquish ties to their previous
homeland. By choosing America over a previous country, one is privileging America, and one
begins to align with an American ideal of identity. In the time that is takes to voluntarily
relinquish ties to a previous home, one becomes steeped in the American Value System, which
valorizes the individual and consumerism, the two most importantly held values, and upon which
the United State of American founded itself, declaring its independence from Britain. Fierce
independence is a product of the intense individualism valorized by the AVS, and has become
synonymous with American-ness.
American identity is simultaneously ascribed and self-invented. As one writes their
identity, they become American. To state oneself as American is to be American, and to be stated
as American is to be American.

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American identity, like America the country, occupies a position of dominance and
power, and in that position exerts oppression over those it subjects. In America identity as
American supersedes identity as anything else. American identity is absolutely opposed unAmerican identity. One cannot truly be an American and still be an Italian, or Chinese; one can
only be either Chinese or American, or Italian or American. Refusal to relinquish identity ties to
cultural Others acts as consent to be an Other such as Italian American or Chine American, and
non-admittance into American society.
American Absolutism is problematic and paradoxical. As a nation that markets itself as
the melting pot of the world, the end product is exactly that: American gray, a common,
although broad, American identity. American identity is so ubiquitous that many American fail to
recognize that their American identity as a cultural identity, especially one that is privileged over
other cultural identities within the American mosaic. For one to study identity in art, one must be
able to recognize such dynamics of cultural identity. White Americans often struggle study
identity in art because they have nothing to compare it to. Identity studies are dependent upon a
minority or foreign status. American identity exits as a binary: American or not, and as thus
Americans cant study what they are without a references to contra-pose their thoughts on
American-ness.
The artists who address identity in the 1990s as part of the contemporary art movement
were primarily foreign artists, or minority artists. This makes finding artists who deals with
American identity primarily difficult. Most artists who dealt with identity in their art worked
primarily on the sense of self. One such artist was Cindy Sherman. This movement was fleeing:
in less than a ten year period in the 1990s, identity faded from the mainstream American art
scene.
To understand American Indian theories on identity today, the history of Indigenous
identity discourse must be made clear. The terms Native American, American Indian Aboriginals
and Indigenous peoples are being used synonymously. While there can be some difference
between the four, they are all ways to refer to aboriginal people to the United States. For ease of
scope and comparison to American Art, this essay will focus primarily on Indigenous peoples of
the United States, and ignore the First Nations of Canada, and the Indigenous of Mexico,
although the distinctions are largely political.
American Indian identity is defined not by location, or tradition, and certainly not by
Americans, but by a continuation of the American Indian Value System. This value system
differs from tribe to tribe, and involves not only the ideals held by that tribe on topics such as
how to live ones life, but nearly universally American Indian Value Systems (AVIS) included
community and replacement as core values. Where Americans are most associated with
individualism, American Indians are most associated with communalism. Ones acceptance of the
AVIS is what makes one Indian, for the most part. AVIS is not freely available to anyone, and

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access to AVIS comes simultaneously with a cultural knowledge. However cultural knowledge is
dependent upon tribal connection.
Tribal connection is part of what defines American Indians as indigenous; an identity of
indigenous is not defined by numbers and blood. Tribal identity is both ascribed and inherited;
however, it cannot be self-invented. Blood cannot lie, and the blood of the parents flows through
the veins of the child. Indian parents make Indian children, and in that regard, being Indian isnt
a choice, its something that one is born into. Indian-ness as an inherited trait appears in different
ways, darken skin color, longer hair, tallness or shortness, being thick or wide, but these traits
are, in varying degrees, superficial, and in terms of identity, secondary to identification with the
AIVS. Some American Indians are pale enough to pass as Caucasian, or Mediterranean, or dark
enough to pass as African American, or African. Indian-ness is more than just looking American
Indian. Indian traits are relative, and those who do not know the individual could mistake
ethnicity as one of many ethnicities, but these traits dont leave an individual, they can only be
hidden or displayed. American Indians are born Indian, no matter what one looks like. The linage
of the parents is what proves ones American Indian-ness by blood. Having Indian parents allows
an individual to inherit a place in tribal community. That place is solidified through AIVS.
However solidification with AIVS or cultural activities alone is not sufficient for American
Indian identity.
One of the perks if you will, of being Indigenous is the inclusion in tribal ceremonies,
festivals, and societies. Despite the best efforts of anthropologist, the most sacred knowledge is
still held safely aloof, and being Indian, by blood, allows for one to have access to that specific
cultural knowledge. Inclusion in tribal society is dependent upon association and proximity, as
well as linage. American Indians who are dislocated, without tribal associations, or both are
excluded from tribal culture, but, by merit of their Indian blood, still have availability to re-enter
Native cultural space.
Proximity to tribal spaces doesnt necessarily exclude cities. Indian centers in
metropolitan areas act as an urban reservation, a space separate and different from the
overwhelming American-ness of the place. Proximity to tribal space indicates the distance one is
willing to travel to be a part of tribal community. One supervisor I had drove over an hour every
day, each way from his home to his job, just to live in his tribal space of Santa Clara Pueblo. His
proximity was close, but on the other side, some American Indians will drive hours to reach their
reservation for ceremonies.
Proximity is one of the dependents in the problem of identity because of the very nature
of the American Indian Value System: it is not something to be shed and donned at will, but
embodied essentially.
To be Indian, one must have contacts within the Native cultural space. That contact is
what makes the native cultural space accessible. It is he or she that teaches the AVIS, and who

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shares their cultural knowledge. One may have more than one contact; the greater in number of
the contacts, the faster and more one learns. Acceptance into traditional culture is not an
individuals own decision, but a communal one. One who is trying to gain admittance must prove
oneself; one who was born on the reservation doesnt, but instead grows in that community to
begin with.
Tribal cultural space is communal. The nature of most, if not, all tribes in America was
that of a communal living, a cohabitation, not just with each other but with the environment
around them. With the removal of American Indians from their pre-colonial spaces, the
reservations became the territorial home of American Indians. With the Termination and
Relocation movements by the United State Government in the 1940s to 60s, and the SelfDetermination period starting in 1975, when the Government transferred control of tribal
government and reservations to the American Indians who lived there, Urban Cultural centers
became analogous urban reservations. Communities were often a means of maintaining some
sense of order and coherence. They established sameness, thereby making difference difficult
(McMaster, Reservation X 20), and reservations and Indian centers act in this same way today,
teaching the generations of American Indians the AVIS. Tribal cultural spaces are so deeply
rooted in the Indian Value system that Indian-ness is defined by their embodiment of the AVIS.
Because reservations and Indian centers are steeped in the AVIS and not American values, they
stand apart in physical, historical, and mental space.
The individual, within the communal context of the tribal space and Indigenous culture,
becomes communal. Conformity rules in traditional cultures, and individuality, as per western
ideologies on the subject, are effectively non-existent. Individuality instead exists within the
narrow parameters set forth by the culture in question, but primarily, individuality is surrendered
to the collective community of the tribal space. One becomes, or always was, a part of it. The
unique tribal culture defines the person, with their individuality being usurped by community.
Simplistically, the access to cultural knowledge, and its influence on an individual, is
what defines one as an Indian, more than blood alone.
As part of a tribal culture, with access to the indigenous knowledge within that culture,
one, as part of the collective cannot leave. Their duty is to be a part of the tribe first, and an
individual second. One always has the availability to leave, that option is always open, however,
doing so means holistically, and voluntarily relinquishing ones identity as Indian within the
tribal context. They instead become individuals in the western sense, ascribed as Indian by
Americans on merit of their dark complexion and straight hair. They can also still exist as selfidentified American Indians. Especially if one has Indian blood, if one only relinquishes
proximity and not the AVIS are still Indian, and can be re-initiated into tribal society. American
Indians who voluntarily leave their culture behind enter a place of disassociation. American
Indians, who were born far from their culture and without the association or proximity to be a

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part of tribal culture, are born and live in this state of disassociation. But for those initiated in
their tribal culture, the decision to leave is voluntary.
Place of disassociation are many, such as cities, rural towns, and even the res itself, but
share the common quality of not being part of a tribal community. While outside of the tribal
community, individuals have the time and intellectual space to consider their identity apart from
their Indian-ness. Individualism, not communalism, becomes the primary form of identification;
away from the tribal spaces where communalism is so integral to life, individualism, which is
what Capitalist America was founded on, permeates thought and identity. American Indians that
are disassociated live apart from communal American Indians, just as tribal reservation dwelling
American Indians live separately.
Thus, American Indians can be either communal or individual. Existing as one precludes
ones non-acceptance into the other. While a world of binaries would be easier to conceptualize,
in reality its much more complex. Instead of only two spaces of identity for American Indians to
exist in that is (communal or individual) there are three. A third space of hybridity exists, born
out of non-conformity to either of communalism or individualism. Native artist have explores
this space through their out, which both reflects, and pioneers the Native experience.
A place of hybridity is the place for artists, and all modern American Indians. In the
words of McMaster artist are attempting to merge the legacy of individualism with the dynamic
and affirming bond of community (23) by existing as both modern and traditional
simultaneously.
The space of hybridity is, in fact, the only place that exists. The oppressive forces of
colonization were powerful enough, and lasting enough to touch everyone, in every place. But so
too are aspects of communalism present in individualism. That being said, hybridity isnt a
binary absolute opposed to both communalism and individualism, but a spectrum with
communalism and individualism at its ends. How associated one is with either communalism or
individualism determines ones placement along the spectral line. Elders, who are the keepers and
teachers of Indigenous knowledge and the AVIS, are the model for communalism. Disassociated
American Indians who never knew tribal society or Indigenous knowledge are models for
individualism, and an embodiment of the AVS, but between them is a huge variety and mixtures
of communalism and individualism. This is the space the Native artist carved out, and it is here
that modern Indians exist.
It may be pertinent at this time to state that this hybridity theory of identity is not
exclusive to American Indians. While various other cultures will have other nuances that are
culture specific, the basic model is transferable. This is also largely true for American identity as
well.
American Indian artists were some of the first to actively exist within the hybrid space of
identity. They worked to carve out a space in which they could work both as American Indians,

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and artist, from both tribal and individualistic spaces. Native artists intense in expression and
exploring identity through art comes from a long history of ascription, and being defined by
dominate American culture, rather than being allowed self-determination; the hybrid space is not
just a natural progression, but a necessity for American Indians to grow as artists.
This model of considering identity is the basis for not only a discussion of Indian artist in
contemporary art, but American artists in contemporary art. While the two are generally
unrelated, they do share a great deal in terms of intellectual subject matter and vocabulary for
talking about it. While both sets of artists are concerned with identity in a modern age, American
Indian contemporary artists have not only a modern identity to contend with, but the ascribed
identity as Indigenous from their tribal affiliations and from Western stereotypes.
It might be noticed that throughout this essay, certain words have been noticeably absent,
namely traditional. Traditional is a false construct.
The unwilling separation of the Indigenous space from the rest of America is what
defines it as separate and different. The American perception of what life was life back in the
1800s that is expected in tribal spaces, imprisons all Indigenous people. In terms of art, this
translates to patrons of artists, the curators, and art dealers who sell to collectors are not
interested in contemporary Indian art. They are interested only in the art objects of an older time,
the dug up pots, and beaded shirts found in museums, and not the photography and paintings that
are made in contemporary times. Americans have little interest in learning about a contemporary
Indian, as that would invalidate the history they learned in school. The very existence of
American Indians is a paradox: after 1880 American Indians never show up in history books.
Something that doesnt exist cant exist, and yet, Indian culture abounds in this modern day.
Despite the continuation and evolution of Indian culture in America in this present, art, and
artists are trapped by the conception of traditional art.
The traditional Indian artist, whose art stays firmly within the bounds of the artistic
paradigm set defined by conventional tribal patterns and stereotypes of that people both by
Americans who expect certain art objects from certain people, and by themselves, by catering to
the stylistic desires of Americans. For example, a Pueblo artist, within this traditional art
identity, would only make Pueblo pottery, with the geometric designs and conventional shape as
per the expected image of Pueblo pottery. As an artist, this traditional identity is defined both
by the culture and by westerns, who only acknowledge as valid art that which matches their
perceptions, and expectation of historical authenticity without change or evolution.
It is in the nature of American Identity to either overtake, or ignore Others. Despite the fact that
American Indians were indeed on this continent before Europeans, Americans feel the need to
Other the Indian. One way of doing this is the refusal of admitting their legitimacy. While the
Government has got to be skilled at Othering, socially, American Indians are Othered by the
word traditional, which invalidates contemporary Indian art. Indian art that isnt traditional

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becomes non-existent, just like American Indians themselves. But by creating traditional art,
Indian artist are not only pandering to a colonizing power, but are debilitating their own growth
as artists. Dubin says it rather nicely:
On both sides, ideas about the Other structure cross-cultural interactions creating
expectations and thus providing models for behavior. The process is dialogic stereotypes
of Anglo consumers and Native American artists inform interactions, while these same
interactions, especially brief economic exchanges, serve to reinforce stereotypes (128)
If Americans only buy pots or Katinas, Indian will create pots and Katinas. Americans
will see there are pots and Katinas and buy only pots and Katinas. It is not only a reinforcing of
stereotypes, but self-perpetuating.
With the migrations of American Indians from the reservation to the cities, modernism in
Indian culture has grown. During the 1950s, 60s, and 70s American Indians left the reservation
and adopted the American Value system. This was a dramatic shift from the previous Value
system, and with the movement to metropolitan areas came more modern, and western, forms of
art. This change was catalogued by artists who made art in this period and the venues in which it
could be shown. As stated above, Indigenous art was not defined as Indigenous by Indigenous
people, but by the curators and collectors who acquired it, despite it being Indian art.
Indian artists were faced with two decisions: either make art that caters to the perceptions
of American curators and collectors, or not be accepted in Art circles. Artists chose both, and
neither, in that while some of them did indeed, continue to produce art that was in a traditional
style as defined by the stereotypes of the tribe they belonged to, they also chose to create their
own spaces in which to place their art. These places were apart from anthropological exhibitions,
places such as the Museum of Contemporary arts, which deal with not just indigenous artists, but
contemporary arts.
Numerous artists have explored identity in both American Indian and American realms.
The American adoption of the Hybrid model of identity has been taken up by numerous artists;
however they do all have the characteristic of being of both America and another country, or a
minority status, such as African- American, or Latino. Hybrid theory (as I like to call it) can only
be applied by those who have a non-dominant status as a minority. It is the facet of colonialism
that it doesnt hybrid with its subjugated Others, but remains aloof from them, and American
identity does that outside of the sphere of minorities and foreigners.
However, while the two models remain essentially separate, one being the model for the
colonized, and the other for the colonizers, both share a commonality in where they went within,
and after hybridity in art.
Art on identity is essentially art on stereotypes. While exploring the hybrid space between
communalism and individualism, Indian artist explore what makes stereotypes of American

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Indians. As stated above, its difficult to find an artist that studies identity from an American
perspective without the minority status. Cindy Sherman neatly, but not completely fits the bill.
Because she is a woman, and a woman photographer at that, her identity status is lowered,
especially working in the 70s, 80s, and 90s primarily (although she is still active). She is an
American, and a Woman who deconstructs stereotypes for women, and fondles the flow of
identity. Her most famous work, Untitled Film series shows the fluidity of identity, and the
stereotypes that we construct around them. Each image, when viewed, elicits a set of preconceptions about the woman in the photograph. Yet each on is still Cindy Sherman. Over
hundreds of images over her career Sherman remains Sherman.
Erica Lord is an American Indian artist who does essentially the same thing. Taking the
form of the Untitled Film Series from Sherman Lord makes her own. In Un/Defined Portrait
Series she explored the stereotypes of American Indians by creating a series of fifteen images.
Like Sherman, she poses in each one, using make up and wigs to alter her appearance. Each
image is an entirely different Indian, and yet they are all Indian, and they are all Lord.
Both Sherman and Lord deconstruct the stereotypes around their minority, Women for
both, but Indian-ness for Lord. By taking apart the stereotypes that surround either of them, they
are able expose a more realistic image of Women for Sherman, and American Indians and
Woman for Lord. The singular calling of artist is truth, and deconstruction is a tool for the artist:
deconstructing the construction of false Indian identity has always been a part of Indian art
(Rader, 145).This is exactly what Lord does with her art.
For Contemporary artists, the age of identity ended with the introduction of the new
millennium. Identity was an idea for the last century, and after exhausting themselves with
identity, artists moved on; always moving on to the next thing. For American Indian artists, every
work is about identity. Because their place is not guaranteed, and there are so few spaces for
artists to exhibit their work as art, and not traditional artifacts, Indigenous artists must always
strive to make their art greater, and more innovative. A result of this is that the American Indian
art world is robust with art on the topic of identity. With enough visits to Indian art museums,
one can see a full spectrum of hybridity.

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Works Cited
"Cindy Sherman." The Complete Untitled Film Stills: Cindy Sherman. Museum of Modern Art,
1997. Web. 13 Aug. 2014.
"MoMA | Cindy Sherman | Gallery 2." MoMA | Cindy Sherman | Gallery 2. Museum of Modern
ARt, 2011. Web. 13 Aug. 2014.
Askren, Miquel Icesis, Eric Lord New Native Art criticism. 2001. Print.
Berlo, Janet Catherine, and Philips, Ruth B. Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 1998. Print.
Dublin, Margaret. Native America Collected, The culture of an Art World. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press. 2001. Print.
Grimes, John, R. Killer Languages and Pernicious Art Markets: A Plea for Self-Determination
of Indigenous Creativity, Ed Joseph M. Sanchez, and John. R. Grimes. Relations, Indigenous
Dialogue. Santa Fe. Institute of American Indian Arts. 2006. Print. 235-242.
Lippard, Lucy R. At the Thresholds, ed. Joseph M. Sanchez, and John R. Grimes. Relations,
Indigenous Dialogue. Santa Fe: Institute of American Indian Arts. 2006. Print. 229-234.
McDaniel, Craig, and Roberts Jean. Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Print.
McMaster, Gerald, Living on Reservation X, ed Gerald McMaster. Reservation X. Seattle:
Washington University Press, 1998. Print. 19-30.
---, Towards an Aboriginal Art History ed W. Jackson Rushing III. Native American Art in the
Twentieth Century: makers, meanings, histories. New York, Routledge. 1999. 81-96.
Rader, Dean, Indigenous Semiotics and Shared Modernity, ed Denise K. Cummings.
Visualities, Perspectives on Contemporary American Indian Film and Art. East Lansing:
Michigan State University Press.

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Smith, Paul Chaat, The Meaning of Life, ed Gerald McMaster. Reservation X. Seattle:
Washington University Press, 1998. Print. 31-40.
Townsend-Gault, Charlotte, Let X = Audience, ed Gerald McMaster. Reservation X. Seattle:
Washington University Press, 1998. Print. 41-52.