Cowboys and Indians (and MÈtis?)
The title of this exhibition, Cowboys and Indians (and Métis?), wonders if Métis ought to be considered in the traditional ‘Cowboys and Indians’ dichotomy. At the same time, the bracketing of the ‘M’ word along with a question mark, hints that such binaries are artificial and often racist anyway. Perhaps Métis could be associated with this real and imaginary division but escape by also having an identity distinct from this battle. After all, for centuries mixed bloods have been on both sides of this divide and excluded from each at various times. Métis people are in and between dominant and Aboriginal cultures, races and histories. They/we are at once ourselves and these others who are our kin and neighbours. The fact of Métis disturbs easy divisions and definitions around race, culture, and ethnicity, being and belonging.

“Cowboys and Indians (and Métis?)” is an exploration of this play of identity, association and meaning. On one level, the work is an impersonal reflection. Most of the images are appropriated and the painting styles imitations. The copies are often of (mis)representations, or of images that I would not, personally, be comfortable with, or even imagine, originating. In most cases, I am making reports, jokes and ironic juxtapositions. I am opening questions and wounds rather than offering answers and healing.

On another level, nearly every image has a personal resonance. Parts of “How the West Was…,” for example, reflect on my ancestors’ relationship to the colonization of the West and to its attempted decolonization (the 1885 Resistance). The “Riel Last Portrait” paintings are specific. They not only refer to the leader, but to those Métis who were hounded and threatened with lynching after the failure of 1885. My great, great grandfather Laurent Garneau was arrested as a Riel collaborator and was threatened with the noose (in a non-metaphoric way). “Patrimony” has a similar resonance—many Métis felt ‘under the shadow of the noose’ for generations and have only recently felt able to voice their distinct identity.

Most Métis have (more or less) assimilated into the dominant culture. A few, however, identify with a specific First Nation, have been accepted by that community and embrace traditional practices and teachings. In part, “Cross Addressing,” suggests that someone who looks like a ‘cowboy’ or traditionalist ‘Indian’ could also be Métis. Not all Métis are visible as such. The image also records the common ‘searching’ of faces done by Aboriginal peoples, looking for family resemblances/identity.

Much of the complexity of Métis ness is summed up in the little painting of the Métis flag made up of coloured circles. It is a play on those psychology textbook pictures that test for colour blindness. The title of these tests and this painting, “Colour Discrimination Test,” suggest that difference and identity requires discrimination. Political Métis seek to decolonize themselves and assert their different, collective identity. Such an act requires discrimination—a means of determining who is Métis and who is not. It also suggests an active differencing oneself and one’s group from others. I see the political utility of this, but I question the drive to fix in place an identity that has, for the most part, thrived on its fluidity.

David Garneau
February 2004