Northern exposure: 'Coast to Coast to Coast' — a large-scale study of Canadian Native art — opens at the Albuquerque Museum

Ripped from their land, forced into boarding schools and nearly stripped of their cultures, the Indigenous people of Canada survived to create dazzling art.

One of the first large-scale surveys of Canadian Native art opens at the Albuquerque Museum this month. The exhibition features works by artists from First Nations, Inuit and Métis tribal communities.

“Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection” spans the work of both historic and contemporary artists living and working between the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts.

From historic masks and 18th-century regalia to works by ’60s-’80s vanguard artists such as Norval Morrisseau, Carl Beam and Alex Janvier, to leading contemporary artists such as Kent Monkman, the collection spans genres and materials, as well as a continent. The show was organized by Ontario’s McMichael Canadian Art Collection, as well as Indigenous stakeholders, including scholars, writers, knowledge keepers and contemporary artists.

The museum’s founders Robert and Signe McMichael made early forays into collecting Indigenous art, including major acquisitions of Inuit drawings, prints and sculptures; masks, rattles and headdresses from British Columbia’s Northwest Coast, as well as extensive acquisitions of paintings and prints by Ontario’s Woodland School of artists, a genre combining First Nations and Native American artists from the Great Lakes area.

Northern exposure: 'Coast to Coast to Coast' — a large-scale study of Canadian Native art — opens at the Albuquerque Museum

Norval Morrisseau was known for his vibrant colors, portraying traditional stories, spiritual themes and political messages in his work. His “Thunderbird with Inner Spirit” (1978) evolved from personal experience.

“He was really the first Canadian artist who in the 1960s had achieved national fame,” said Sarah Milroy, McMichael director and chief curator. “His work deals with traditional stories and belief systems.”

The dizzying, neon colors reflect the beauty of Ontario’s fall trees.

“The heart of that work is transformation with the human figure and the bird,” Milroy continued.

Morrisseau’s ceremonial name was Copper Thunderbird. He often referred to himself as a shaman or a healer.

Haida artist Albert Edward Edenshaw carved his “Raven Rattle,” ca. 1860, from wood and painted it. Raven rattles, carried in dances by men of high rank, traditionally feature a raven, a secondary raven’s face, and a human figure reclining on the raven’s back. Here, the human figure has a bear’s or wolf’s head and, on the underside, a tiny frog sits at the bottom of the face on the raven’s breast.

“The whole form of the rattle is a crest figure, like a family crest,” Milroy said.

Ojibwa artist Carl Beam’s photo etching on paper “Various Concerns of the Artist” (1984) features a photo of the artist next to one of a mummified female pharaoh. An Eadweard Muybridge photo of an elk trots along the bottom of the piece. Muybridge was best known for his photographic studies of motion in humans and animals.

“He was influenced by Muybridge and (the American pop artist Robert) Rauschenberg,” Milroy added.

Dana Claxton is a Hunkpapa Lakota filmmaker, photographer and performance artist who invited women to bring a collection of their own cultural belongings to her studio. Her work looks at stereotypes, historical context and gender studies of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, specifically those of the First Nations.

With “Headdress-Shadae” (2019) she captures an Indigenous woman covered in multiple hats, feathers and beadwork. The plethora of stuff covers her face.

“It’s both humorous and menacing in not being able to see the subject of the portrait,” Milroy said. “To me, it says, ‘I’ll show you what I want to show you.’ ”

A master of pastiche, Cree artist Kent Monkman’s “Wedding at Sodom” (2017) reimagines colonization through the rendezvous that occurred during the 1700s. Merchants, traders, settlers and Native people gathered for trade and celebration.

“Monk imagines it as a kind of gay-positive free-for-all,” Milroy said. “He’s imagining a kind of bacchanal where people come and enjoy each other.

“He’s one of the most important contemporary Canadian artists,” said Josie Lopez, Albuquerque Museum curator. “He’s known for his use of wit and satire, often bringing the two-spirit identity in Indigenous cultures.”

His alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, straddles a horse, aiming an arrow at a hunky cowboy while a gay marriage unfolds in the foreground.

“He’s shooting the arrow like Cupid,” Lopez said.

Monkman was the first Indigenous artist to receive a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada.

Cowichan/Syilx artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun addresses the environment in his 2019 canvas “New Climate Landscape (Northwest Coast Climate Change).” Many of his works offer searing critiques of settler land use and abuse and the devious machinations of resource extraction on Indigenous land. Here he creates a vision of power and humanity’s place within it.

At first glance, it seems a profusion of blue and green mountains and trees. A closer look reveals a frog sticking out his tongue amid a bevy of ovals.

“He’s showing us a natural world permeated with culture,” Milroy said. “The ovoid forms are characteristic of Northwest Coast design. He’s showing a landscape that has been acculturated.”

The exhibition moves next to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.