adrian Stimson: Maanipokaa’iini

remai Modern, April 2, 2022 – September 4, 2022

Maanipokaa’iini means newborn bison in Siksikáí’powahsin, the Blackfoot language. It was chosen for the title of this exhibition following the birth of a bison calf in September 2021, when Adrian Stimson was an artist-in-residence at Wanuskewin Galleries. The new calf is part of the second generation born on that land since the almost total extermination of the Buffalo Nation in the 19th century, highlighting maanipokaa’iini as a powerful symbol of resilience, renewal and futurity.

Across installation, painting, photography, video and live performance, Stimson re-signifies colonial history through humour and counter-memory. The exhibition features significant works from Stimson’s nearly 20-year practice that draw on his lived experience as a Two-Spirit Blackfoot person and survivor of the residential day school system. In Stimson’s works, Iini (bison) represents the violence of colonial westward expansion while also grounding his practice in the culture- and life-sustaining relationship Indigenous communities have with this revered kin. These interconnected areas of focus form an encompassing vision wherein the fraught history of Indigenous-settler relations on the Plains is simultaneously mourned and turned on its head.

INTERPRETATION

Buffalo Boy’s Transformations (wall text)

Some of Adrian Stimson’s earliest works are paintings that introduce ideas foundational to his entire practice. Buffalo Particles is the Stimson family’s painted Nitoyiss (tipi), a sacred structure imbued with medicines. The design, given to the artist in a vision, depicts a vortex of bison that Stimson describes as “particles of energy swirling, constantly renewing. In the Blackfoot lifeworld, the continual movement and transformation of energy (or spirit) is the basis of everything that is, connecting all in a cosmic spiderweb of relations. Colonial policies encouraging the historical slaughter of the bison had an intended and devestating effect on Plains Indigenous life. Yet, from a Blackfoot perspective, death does not destroy energy but transforms it, holding the potential for renewal.

The birth, death, and occasional hauntings of Buffalo Boy reflect Stimson’s understanding of his Blackfoot world. Buffalo Boy emerged from the belly of a supernatural bison on the coldest day on earth, and was weaned “on the frozen nipple of the northern lights. She first appeared at the Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in 2004, and was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horny in Calgary in 2008. Buffalo Boy and the Shaman Exterminator reappeared as spectral presences in later performances, returning from the afterlife to haunt the structures of colonialism and keep audiences on their toes.

PERFORMACE

New Born Buffalo Boy, 2022

“This performance introduced a reborn Buffalo Boy with long white braids, a white fringed bison robe and a bison breastplate with abalone shell nipples. Against a video backdrop of the Shaman Exterminator at moonset, Buffalo Boy entered the room as the song “I Will Survive” (sung by Stimson) played. He gifted blankets to Elder Cy Standing, Aileen Burns, Johan Lundh and Tarah Hogue before spending considerable time handing out bison-fur hearts to audience members. Stimson then ascended a circular stage emblazoned with the Union Jack surrounded by the medicine wheel colours. The performance ended in a group dance party.”

- Adrian Stimson: Maanipokaa’iini exhibition catalogue

Performance documentation by Carey Shaw.

PUBLICATION

Adrian Stimson: Maanipokaa’iini - Remai Modern Art & Design Store

Edited by Tarah Hogue; 140 pages; designed by Sébastien Aubin, Otami

Texts by Elder Mary Lee, Tess Allas and Joseph Pugliese, Tarah Hogue, Erin Sutherland, and Ernie Walker

“Across Stimson’s practice, the cyclical movements of destruction and renewal are intimately bound. The decimation of the great bison herds, the displacement and starvation of Indigenous peoples, and the assimilative abuses of the residential school system were all part of a settler teleology that figures time as linear and the demise of Indigenous and Buffalo Nations as an inevitable consequence of “progress.” But in the Blackfoot lifeworld, rather than progression, balance is key, and that requires attending to all one is in relation with. In his practice, Stimson strives for balance as a truth-teller and a Trickster who tips the colonial scales in his favour. In Maanipokaa’iini he is once again renewed—both wilder and wiser—and ready for the next revolution.” — Tarah Hogue, “Cyclical returns and transformations in the art of Adrian Stimson”

PRESS

Laura St. Pierre, “Adrian Stimson: Bison at the heart of show that reflects on prairie history, Galleries West, May 30, 2022, https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/adrian-stimson/

Stephanie Danyluk, “Maanipokaa’iini, countering Colonialism, contemplating Reconciliation,” Muse Magazine (Spring 2022), https://museums.ca/site/reportsandpublications/museonline/spring2022/stimson

Amanda Short, “Remai Modern hosts Maanipokaa’iini, the first survey of Adrian Stimson's work,” April 14, 2022, https://thestarphoenix.com/entertainment/local-arts/remai-modern-hosts-maanipokaaiini-the-first-survey-of-adrian-stimsons-work

Saskatoon Morning with Leisha Grebinski, CBC, April 1, 2022, https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-88-saskatoon-morning/clip/15904241-a-siksikanation-artist-bringing-character-created-years

INSTALLATION IMAGES
by Blaine Campbell