Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)
Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People). Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. 1992 C.E. Oil and mixed media on canvas.
- As a response to the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in North America in 1992, the artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Nation, created a large mixed-media canvas called Trade
- illustrates historical and contemporary inequities between Native Americans and the United States government.
- The fundamental misunderstanding between the Native and non-Native worlds underlies this piece.
- For Trade, Smith layered images, paint, and objects on the surface of the canvas, suggesting layers of history and complexity. Divided into three large panels, the triptych (three part) arrangement is reminiscent of a medieval altarpiece.
- photos, comics, tobacco and gum wrappers, fruit carton labels, ads, and pages from comic books, all of which feature stereotypical images of Native Americans.
- She applied blocks of white, yellow, green, and especially red paint over the layer of collaged materials.
- The color red had multiple meanings for Smith, referring to her Native heritage as well as to blood, warfare, anger, and sacrifice.
- emphasis on prominent brushstrokes and the dripping blocks of paint
- For a final layer, she painted the outline of an almost life-sized canoe. Canoes were used by Native Americans as well as non-Native explorers and traders in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century to travel along the waterways of North America. The canoe suggests the possibility of trade and cultural connections—though this empty canoe is stuck, unable to move.
- Above the canvas, Smith strung a clothesline from which she dangled a variety of Native-themed toys and souvenirs, especially from sports teams with Native American mascots.
- Smith offers these cheap goods in exchange for the lands that were lost, reversing the historic sale of land for trinkets. These items also serve as reminders of how Native life has been commodified, turning Native cultural objects into cheap items sold without a true understanding of what the original meanings were.
- Smith’s art shares her view of the world, offering her personal perspective as an artist, a Native American, and a woman. Her work creates a dialogue between the art and its viewers and explores issues of Native identity as it is seen by both Native Americans and non-Natives.
- raises the issue of contemporary inequities that are rooted in colonial experience.