Hallwalls to Host
Internationally Acclaimed Artist Kent Monkman
Artist’s work
explores alternate cultural narratives
Buffalo – The University at Buffalo’s Department of Visual
Studies, in partnership with New York City’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and
Lesbian Art and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center presents internationally
acclaimed Canadian artist Kent Monkman, who will speak at Hallwalls (341 Delaware Ave at Tupper) on February 28th at 6:00pm. The talk is part of the Leslie- Lohman Queer Art
Lecture Series.
Monkman, who is of both Native American and European descent,
works in a variety of media: film/video, painting, installations and
performance. Operating at the intersection of colonial history and
post-colonial culture, Monkman’s work not only calls into question our received
histories but demonstrates that we are all necessarily hybrids, As Monkman once
said, in a performance, “Alas, the face of the white man is changing. All
traces of his former self are being altered through contact with the red man.”
Jonathan D. Katz, Director of the University at Buffalo’s Visual
Studies PhD program, President of the Leslie-Lohman Museum, and curator of the
series, commented on Monkman’s work: “To note that Kent Monkman is one of the most celebrated artists
working in Canada today, or that he’s part Cree, part European, or that he’s
queer and often performs in drag is unfortunately to fix what remains in his
work always fluid. With a foot in each of our defining binaries, be they
male/female, past/present, Aboriginal/European, Canadian/American - Monkman’s
work underscores that contact always leaves both parties changed. And
contact, even in the historical sense of that very fraught contact between the
new world and the old, implies an erotics we have been too quick to deny.
”Monkman’s career spans more than two decades and his work has
been extensively exhibited in Canada, the United States and Europe in both solo
and group exhibitions including the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Winnipeg
Art Gallery, The American West, at Compton Verney, in Warwickshire,
England, the 2010 Sydney Biennale, My Winnipeg at
Maison Rouge, Paris, and Oh Canada!, at MASS MOCA. His work is held in
numerous private and public collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario,
the National Gallery of Canada, Museum London, The Museum of Contemporary
Canadian Art, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Monkman’s appearance is co-sponsored by UB’s Department of
Transnational Studies, which includes programs in Canadian Studies, Global Gender Studies,
and Native American Studies; the UB Canadian-American Studies Committee; the UB
Humanities Institute; the UB Haudenosaunee- Native American Studies Research
Group; the UB Graduate Group in Queer Studies; UB Law School’s OUTLaw; and Gay
and Lesbian Youth Services (GLYS) of Western New York.
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is the world’s
first museum dedicated solely to providing a venue for multi-disciplinary work
that engages gay and lesbian historical, social, or political issues still
excluded from mainstream venues. The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art Queer Art Lecture Series is dedicated to queer art and artists,
showcasing the most significant contemporary queer artists with an emphasis on
exploring the relationship between their sexuality and their art. Each of the lectures in the series will
also be presented at the Leslie-Lohman Museum located at 26 Wooster Street, NY,
NY.
For more information on Kent Monkman please visit
www.kentmonkman.com
