Works by Kent Monkman

By intervening in European and American art histories, Cree artist Kent Monkman’s painting practice also connects to ideas of exploration and exploitation across space and time. His provocative, Two-Spirit alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, is a protagonist often found within Kent’s grand historical paintings. Her recurring presence challenges Indigenous portrayals within the lineage of the Western canon by presenting a Cree perspective often left out of the dialogue. Sing to Miss Chief (2025) is a landscape painting of Miss Chief returning to Mitu’tahakto’s, a Mandan earth lodge village located on the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota. In this painting, kâ-wâsihkopayicik or the “sparkly ones,” run to meet MissChief, who has returned from her travels:

“When we arrived at Mitu’tahakto’s a few weeks later, I bid my companions pause so that I could drape myself in my now-completed robe … the exquisitely attired and lavishly adorned kâ-wâsihkopayicik sparkling at the front of the excited crowd.”

Quote from Kent Monkman and Gisele Gordon, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Vol. One: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island.

Co-presented by the Toronto Biennial of Art and the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and made possible with the generous support of Becky and David Gochman

Artwork Descriptions:

Die Indianer, 2014
Die Indianer speaks to Romanticism and the enduring German fascination with Indigenous peoples from Turtle Island. Nineteenth century author Karl May wrote Western adventure novels that captivated German audiences for over a century, leading to the establishment of hobbyist “Indianer” camps across Germany in which participants dress up in Indigenous-inspired clothing and perform activities they associate with Indigenous lifestyles. In Kent Monkman’s landscape, inspired by German-born Albert Bierstadt’s painting, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (1863), blonde actors stage an opera of Wagnerian proportions. Kent’s alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, intercedes in the scene, channelling the fierce dramatic force of legendary opera diva Maria Callas; Miss Chief’s performance of a Cree aria offers a correction to the bizarre fantasy unfolding around her.