ART / HISTORY

Turning The Tables on Western Art

Kent Monkman’s exhibition at the Denver Art Museum dares the viewer to rethink history and sexuality

“Miss Chief’s Wet Dream” by Kent Monkman. Photo by the author.

What do you see in your mind’s eye when you think of the Old West? Perhaps you see Wyatt Earp and his gunslingers going after the cattle rustlers. Maybe you see the U.S. and Canadian national parks in their glory days with open skies and ragged peaks in Yosemite, or the Rocky Mountains in Glacier National Park, or its Canadian sister park, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Or perhaps it’s the regal Indigenous chief, as painted by a Master white man, or a scene from a fight between Indians and Cowboys on the Great Plains?

These are the images of the Victors, the ones who get to say what our North American history was. These photos and paintings, dating primarily from the mid-1800s to the early 20th century, are what brought immigrants, mostly white, west, to conquer, discover, and claim the land.

First Nations Cree artist Kent Monkman flips the script on all of this in his exhibition called History is Painted by the Victors.

There are 41 works in the exhibition, some of which are already in the museum’s collection. Others are new or borrowed from other sources…