Kent Monkman has been participating in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, and abroad for over two decades. Since his first major solo exhibition, The Triumph of Mischief, that premiered at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 2007, Monkman has gained an international profile. His art practice has informed critical articles and publications by leading curators and writers in the field.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2001
The Prayer Language, Indian Art Centre at Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Ottawa.
2005
Share Eagle Testickle: Artist and Model, The Drake Hotel, Toronto.
2006
Kent Monkman, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff.
Kent Monkman: Salon Indien, an installation including Boudoir de Berdashe tipi, Group of Seven Inches film, and The Emergence of a Legend series of photographs, co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton at the Toronto International Art Fair.
2007–10
Kent Monkman: The Triumph of Mischief, co-organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto. Toured to the Winnipeg Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, Halifax; and Glenbow Museum, Calgary.
2008
Kent Monkman: Dance to the Berdashe, Bailey Fine Arts, Toronto; Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery, Winnipeg.
2009
Kent Monkman: Dance to the Berdashe, Montreal Museum of Fine Art.
2010
Kent Monkman: My Treaty is with the Crown, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal.
2011
Kent Monkman: The Atelier, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Montreal.
Kent Monkman: The Art Game, Toronto International Art Fair.
2013
Kent Monkman: The Big Four, Glenbow Museum, Calgary.
2014
Kent Monkman: The Artist as Hunter, Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, France.
Kent Monkman: Welcome to the Studio, McCord Museum, Montreal.
2015
Kent Monkman: The Rise and Fall of Civilization, Gardiner Museum, Toronto.
Kent Monkman: Casualties of Modernity, BMO Project Room, Toronto.
2016
The Four Continents, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
2017–21
Shame & Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Toured to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax; McCord Museum, Montreal; Museum London; Winnipeg Art Gallery; and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver.
2018
Kent Monkman: Beauty and the Beasts, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris.
2019
Kent Monkman: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
2022–23
Kent Monkman: Being Legendary, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2002
Between You and Me, Museum London, London, Ontario.
2004
First Nations Art, Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Ontario.
We Come in Peace: Histories of the Americas, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
2005
Hot Mush and the Cold North, Ottawa Art Gallery.
2006
Unholy Alliance: Art and Fashion Meet Again, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto.
Re-thinking Nordic Colonialism, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Helsinki.
2007
Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World, Heard Museum, Phoenix, and the National Museum of the American Indian, New York City.
Crack the Sky, Montreal Biennale, Centre internationale d’art contemporain de Montréal.
2008
Caught in the Act: The Viewer as Performer, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Face the Nation, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton.
2010
Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
The Beauty of Distance, Sydney Biennale.
Remember Humanity, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam.
2011
Barroco Nova: Neo Baroque Moves in Contemporary Art, McIntosh Gallery, London, Ontario.
Close Encounters, Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art, Winnipeg.
2012
Oh, Canada, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts.
Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario.
Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.
SKIN: The Seduction of Surface, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax.
2013
Fiction/Non-Fiction, Esker Foundation, Calgary.
Sakahan: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The Painting Project, Galerie de l’UQUAM, Montreal.
Beat Nation, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto.
Sovereign: Independent Voices, Denver Art Museum.
2014
Unsettled Landscapes, SITE Santa Fe.
This is Me, This is Also Me, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton.
2016
Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto, Art Museum at the University of Toronto.
2017
Dioramas, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Neo Native: Toward New Mythologies, Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, Alta Loma, California.
The Western: An Epic in Art and Film, Denver Art Museum.
Native Fashion Now, National Museum of the American Indian, New York City.
Two Spirit Sur-Thrivance and the Art of Interrupting Narratives, Never Apart, Montreal.
Tous, des sang-mêlés, Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
2018
Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas.
2019
Kiss My Genders, Southbank Centre, London, United Kingdom.
Embodying the Self, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago.
Of Our Time, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines.
RE:DEFINE – Reconsidering Native Art, Heard Museum, Phoenix.
Performances
2004
Group of Seven Inches, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario.
2005
Share Eagle Testickle: Artist and Model, The Drake Hotel, Toronto.
The Taxonomy of the European Male, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, England.
2006
Gone With the Wind, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto.
2007
Séance, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
2010
Iskootāo, Nuit Blanche, Toronto.
2012
Miss Chief: Justice of the Piece, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
2013
Casualties of Modernity, Denver Art Museum.
2019
Another Feather in Her Bonnet, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Media Interviews and Podcasts
“Kent Monkman, Changing Hands: Art without Reservation 3”
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario
April 4, 2013
“Kent Monkman: Stealing Landscapes”
Denver Art Museum
October 18, 2013
“Kent Monkman: Casualties of Modernity”
Speaker Series, Penny Stamps School of Art and Design
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
January 28, 2016
“Artist Kent Monkman Escapes the Busy City”
CBC Arts
November 26, 2016
“Dennis Ward Sits down with Artist, Kent Monkman”
APTN FaceToFace
May 10, 2017
“Toronto, Love and Living: Kent Monkman”
Creative Time Summit
October 18, 2017
“Canadian Painter Kent Monkman’s Process, from Inspiration to Final Painting”
Globe and Mail, Toronto
December 4, 2017
“Kent Monkman—Beauty and the Beasts”
Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris
August 13, 2018
“Kent Monkman: Decolonizing Art History”
CBC Radio
February 12, 2019
Kent Monkman Goes Back to the Urban Rez
CBC Indigenous
October 12, 2019
“Artist Interview—Kent Monkman: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)”
Metropolitan Museum of Art website
December 20, 2019
“Kent Monkman ‘Reverses the Colonial Gaze’ with New Paintings at the Met”
CBC
December 22, 2019
“Miss Chief in the Museum”
Alex Fountain Memorial Lecture
University of King’s College, Halifax
February 27, 2020
“On Art and Resilience: Artist Talk with Kent Monkman”
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
May 10, 2020
Selected Writings on Kent Monkman
Exhibition Publications
Bedard, Catherine. Beauty and the Beasts / La Belle et la Bête. Paris: Canadian Cultural Centre, 2018.
Liss, David, and Shirley Madill. Kent Monkman: The Triumph of Mischief. Hamilton: Art Gallery of Hamilton; Toronto: Museum of Contemporary Art; Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2008.
Morton, Erin. Kent Monkman’s Frontier: The Wanderings of an Artist within the Postcolonial Landscape. Edited by Jocelyn Purdie. Kingston: Queen’s University and Union Gallery, 2007.
Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2020.
Saul, John Ralston, Keith Goulet, and Dr. E.R. Atleo (Umeek). Kent Monkman: The Four Continents. London: Black Dog Press, 2017.
Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art. New Haven and London: Peabody Essex Museum with Yale University Press, 2012.
Thériault, Michèle, ed. Interpellations: Three Essays on Kent Monkman. Montreal: Leonard and Ellen Art Gallery, 2012.
Periodicals and Press
Baird, Daniel. “The Alternative Realism of Kent Monkman.” Walrus, February 2017.
Barringer, Tim. “The Big Review: Kent Monkman at the Met.” Art Newspaper, February 26, 2020.
Bascaramurty, Dakshana. “The Modern Touch of an Old Master.” Globe and Mail, December 2017.
Brooks, Katherine. “Kent Monkman, Aka Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Confronts Native American Myths.” Huffington Post, May 2014.
Cascone, Sarah. “Cree Artist Kent Monkman Takes Us on a Tour of the Met to Show How Not to Depict Indigenous People.” Artnet, January 2, 2020.
Cotter, Holland. “A Cree Artist Redraws History.” New York Times, December 19, 2019.
Enright, Robert. “The Incredible Rightness of Mischief: An Interview with Kent Monkman.” Border Crossings, Issue 143, September 2017.
Everett-Green, Robert. “Kent Monkman: A Trickster with a Cause Crashes Canada’s 150th Birthday Party.” Globe and Mail, January 2017.
Gleeson, Bridget. “Kent Monkman Paints Clashing Cultures in ‘Failure of Modernity.’” Artsy, January 2016.
Hill, Richard William. “The Unreadable Present: Nadia Myre and Kent Monkman.” C Magazine, September 2002.
Johnson, Ashley. “Kent Monkman.” Canadian Art, Spring 2008.
Liss, David. “Kent Monkman: Miss Chief’s Return.” Canadian Art, Fall 2005.
McIntosh, David. “Kent Monkman’s Postindian Diva Warrior.” FUSE, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2008).
Milroy, Sarah. “Kent Monkman: Honouring the Dispossessed.” Globe and Mail, October 2012.
Taylor, Kate. “At the Met, Cree Artist Kent Monkman Asks Visitors to Confront North America’s Colonial Past.” Globe and Mail, December 18, 2019.
Timm, Jordan. “Landscape with Sexy Transvestite.” Maclean’s, December 2007.
Vartanian, Hrag. “The Violent History of Kent Monkman.” Hyperallergic, June 2014.
Wells, Paul. “Kent Monkman’s Big Entrance.” Maclean’s, December 19, 2019.
Whyte, Murray. “Truth, Resilience and Indigenous Art Find Their Place in 2016.” Toronto Star, December 2016.
Further Reading
Baker, Joe and Gerald McMaster, eds. Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World. Washington and New York: Smithsonian Institution, 2007.
O’Hara, Jean. Two-Spirit Acts: Queer Indigenous Performances. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2013.
Morris, Kate. Shifting Grounds: Landscape in Contemporary Native American Art. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.
Phillips, Ruth B. Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.
About the Author
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Acknowledgements