Another Feather in her Bonnet
Born in Saint Maurys Ontario, in 1965
2017
Video performance
Durattion: 5 min 2 s (looped)
In collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Maison Jean Paul Gaultier
Click here for Kent Monkman's official website.
On September 8, 2017, in connection with the exhibition Love Is Love: Wedding Bliss for All à la Jean Paul Gaultier, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presented a performance by Kent Monkman, a Toronto-based artist of Cree ancestry, with the special participation of French couturier Jean Paul Gaultier.
The performance featured the unorthodox union of two champions of sexual diversity: Gaultier, the "enfant terrible of fashion," and Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman's flamboyant two-spirit alter ego. The ceremony was held under a variation of the artist's Théâtre de cristal (2007), an elegant tipi measuring six metres in diameter and made of 350 strings of glass beads. The artist exchanged their vows of mutual respect and compassion in the presence of two witnesses, Nathalie Bondil, Museum Director General and Chief Curator, and Thierry-Maxime Loriot, curator of the exhibition Love Is Love. Actor Andrew Schiver oddiciated, and Ève Salvail, Gaultier's muse, was bridesmaid.
For the occasion, Monkman - in the guise the eccentric warrior diva and recurrent figure in his work - donned the white eagle-feather headdress created by the couturier for a wedding gown in the 2002/2003 fall-winter haute couture collection The Hussars, presented in Love Is Love. Monkman appropriates the headdress, playing on the figure of the sexualized stereotyped Aboriginal woman as perceived by the colonial gaze. Through his character Miss Chiel Eagle Testickle, he evokes the berdashe, a two-spirit person venerated by many First Nations and whose cross-dressing was scandalized European colonists.
Traditionally reserved for men, First Nations white-eagle-feather headdresses are imbued with spiritual significance. They symbolize the wearer's level of achievement as well as his community involvement. While cultural appropriation of Indienous signs and symbols is not new to art or fashion, the North American debate has somewhat evolved. The appearance of this headdress in the exhibition Love Is Love demanded a response. At the Museum's invitation, Monkman created this performance, intended to recontextualize and re-appropriate the headdress with the collaboration of Jean Paul Gaultier. Avoiding the double impasse represented by indifference, on the one hand, and self-censorship, on the other, the Museum views this performance as a third constructive and creative avenue, a gesture of friendship and dialogue between designer and artist.
With his writing partner Gisèle Gordon, Monkman created this performance - wedding ceremony so that the couple could express their vows for an artistic union founded on mutual respect and cultural understanding: "No doubt driven by the unconscious creative impulse emerging from a fold in the fabric of the space-time continuum, Jean Paul Gaultier created this hdeaddress destined for his future collaborator, the ravishing Miss Eagle Testickle. Today, Miss Chief accepts Jean Paul Gaultier's proposal of artistic union as an aesthetic alliance leading to mutual respect [and] cultural understanding. From now on, no one but she, the magnificent illusionist and warrior of her people, can wear this headdress."
Simultaneously with the performance, Monkman Studio and Toronto photographer Chris Chapman took the wedding portraits of Miss Chief and Jean Paul Gauthier, adopting the aesthetic and format of cabinet cards, a type of photo-card originating in nineteenth-century France. Exhibited alongside the video of the performance at the new Canadian Cultural Centre - Paris, in 2018, they are shown here for the first time in Canada. While the debate rages on, this positive example of reconciliation provides food for thought.
Another Feather in her Bonnet
Born in Saint Maurys Ontario, in 1965
2017
Video performance
Durattion: 5 min 2 s (looped)
In collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Maison Jean Paul Gaultier
Click here for Kent Monkman's official website.
On September 8, 2017, in connection with the exhibition Love Is Love: Wedding Bliss for All à la Jean Paul Gaultier, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presented a performance by Kent Monkman, a Toronto-based artist of Cree ancestry, with the special participation of French couturier Jean Paul Gaultier.
The performance featured the unorthodox union of two champions of sexual diversity: Gaultier, the "enfant terrible of fashion," and Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman's flamboyant two-spirit alter ego. The ceremony was held under a variation of the artist's Théâtre de cristal (2007), an elegant tipi measuring six metres in diameter and made of 350 strings of glass beads. The artist exchanged their vows of mutual respect and compassion in the presence of two witnesses, Nathalie Bondil, Museum Director General and Chief Curator, and Thierry-Maxime Loriot, curator of the exhibition Love Is Love. Actor Andrew Schiver oddiciated, and Ève Salvail, Gaultier's muse, was bridesmaid.
For the occasion, Monkman - in the guise the eccentric warrior diva and recurrent figure in his work - donned the white eagle-feather headdress created by the couturier for a wedding gown in the 2002/2003 fall-winter haute couture collection The Hussars, presented in Love Is Love. Monkman appropriates the headdress, playing on the figure of the sexualized stereotyped Aboriginal woman as perceived by the colonial gaze. Through his character Miss Chiel Eagle Testickle, he evokes the berdashe, a two-spirit person venerated by many First Nations and whose cross-dressing was scandalized European colonists.
Traditionally reserved for men, First Nations white-eagle-feather headdresses are imbued with spiritual significance. They symbolize the wearer's level of achievement as well as his community involvement. While cultural appropriation of Indienous signs and symbols is not new to art or fashion, the North American debate has somewhat evolved. The appearance of this headdress in the exhibition Love Is Love demanded a response. At the Museum's invitation, Monkman created this performance, intended to recontextualize and re-appropriate the headdress with the collaboration of Jean Paul Gaultier. Avoiding the double impasse represented by indifference, on the one hand, and self-censorship, on the other, the Museum views this performance as a third constructive and creative avenue, a gesture of friendship and dialogue between designer and artist.
With his writing partner Gisèle Gordon, Monkman created this performance - wedding ceremony so that the couple could express their vows for an artistic union founded on mutual respect and cultural understanding: "No doubt driven by the unconscious creative impulse emerging from a fold in the fabric of the space-time continuum, Jean Paul Gaultier created this hdeaddress destined for his future collaborator, the ravishing Miss Eagle Testickle. Today, Miss Chief accepts Jean Paul Gaultier's proposal of artistic union as an aesthetic alliance leading to mutual respect [and] cultural understanding. From now on, no one but she, the magnificent illusionist and warrior of her people, can wear this headdress."
Simultaneously with the performance, Monkman Studio and Toronto photographer Chris Chapman took the wedding portraits of Miss Chief and Jean Paul Gauthier, adopting the aesthetic and format of cabinet cards, a type of photo-card originating in nineteenth-century France. Exhibited alongside the video of the performance at the new Canadian Cultural Centre - Paris, in 2018, they are shown here for the first time in Canada. While the debate rages on, this positive example of reconciliation provides food for thought.