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list price: $34.95
edition:Paperback
category: Art
published: Mar 2018
ISBN:9781772031706
publisher: Heritage House Publishing

Sonny Assu

A Selective History

by (artist) Sonny Assu, foreword by Janet Rogers, by Candice Hopkins; Marianne Nicolson; Richard Van Camp & Ellyn Walker

tagged: canadian, artists' books, native american
Description

A stunning retrospective highlighting the playfulness, power, and subversive spirit of Northwest Coast Indigenous artist Sonny Assu.

Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective spans over a decade of Assu’s career, highlighting more than 120 full-colour works, including several never-before-exhibited pieces.

 

Through analytical essays and personal narratives, Richard Van Camp, Marianne Nicolson, Candice Hopkins, and Ellyn Walker provide brilliant commentary on Assu’s practice, its meaning in the context of contemporary art, and its wider significance in the struggle for Indigenous cultural and political autonomy. Exploring themes of Indigenous rights, consumerism, branding, humour, and the ways in which history informs contemporary ideas and identities, Sonny Assu: A Selective History is the first major full-scale book to pay tribute to this important, prolific, and vibrant figure in the Canadian contemporary art world.

About the Authors

Sonny Assu is an interdisciplinary artist whose diverse practice is informed by a deep connection to Kwakwaka’wakw art and culture and melded with
western/pop principles of art making. His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery and into various public and private collections across Canada, the US, and the UK. He currently resides in unceded Ligwiłda’xw territory (Campbell River, BC).

 


Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in Ontario. She was born in Vancouver and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people in Victoria, British Columbia, since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken-word performance poetry, video poetry, recorded poetry with music, and script writing. From 2012 to 2014, Janet served as Poet Laureate of Victoria. Janet has published three poetry collections to date: Splitting the Heart (Ekstasis Editions, 2007), Red Erotic (Ojistah, 2010), and Unearthed (Leaf Press, 2011). Her poetry CDs Firewater (2009), Got Your Back (2012), and 6 Directions (2013) all received ­nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, and the Native American Music Awards. Janet hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV and Tribal Clefs on CBC Radio One in Victoria. Her radio documentaries Bring Your Drum: 50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music and Resonating Reconciliation won Best Radio at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media festival in 2011 and 2013. Ikkwenyes or Dare to Do is the name of the collective ­Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs and Janet created in 2011. Ikkwenyes won the Canada Council for the Arts Collaborative Exchange Award in 2012 and a Loft Literary Prize in 2013.

Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in Ontario. She was born in Vancouver and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people in Victoria, British Columbia, since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken-word performance poetry, video poetry, recorded poetry with music, and script writing. From 2012 to 2014, Janet served as Poet Laureate of Victoria. Janet has published three poetry collections to date: Splitting the Heart (Ekstasis Editions, 2007), Red Erotic (Ojistah, 2010), and Unearthed (Leaf Press, 2011). Her poetry CDs Firewater (2009), Got Your Back (2012), and 6 Directions (2013) all received ­nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, and the Native American Music Awards. Janet hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV and Tribal Clefs on CBC Radio One in Victoria. Her radio documentaries Bring Your Drum: 50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music and Resonating Reconciliation won Best Radio at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media festival in 2011 and 2013. Ikkwenyes or Dare to Do is the name of the collective ­Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs and Janet created in 2011. Ikkwenyes won the Canada Council for the Arts Collaborative Exchange Award in 2012 and a Loft Literary Prize in 2013.

Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from the Six Nations band in Ontario. She was born in Vancouver and has been living on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people in Victoria, British Columbia, since 1994. Janet works in the genres of poetry, spoken-word performance poetry, video poetry, recorded poetry with music, and script writing. From 2012 to 2014, Janet served as Poet Laureate of Victoria. Janet has published three poetry collections to date: Splitting the Heart (Ekstasis Editions, 2007), Red Erotic (Ojistah, 2010), and Unearthed (Leaf Press, 2011). Her poetry CDs Firewater (2009), Got Your Back (2012), and 6 Directions (2013) all received ­nominations for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, and the Native American Music Awards. Janet hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV and Tribal Clefs on CBC Radio One in Victoria. Her radio documentaries Bring Your Drum: 50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music and Resonating Reconciliation won Best Radio at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media festival in 2011 and 2013. Ikkwenyes or Dare to Do is the name of the collective ­Mohawk poet Alex Jacobs and Janet created in 2011. Ikkwenyes won the Canada Council for the Arts Collaborative Exchange Award in 2012 and a Loft Literary Prize in 2013.

Internationally renowned storyteller and award-winning author Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Tłı̨chǫ Dene from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. A graduate of the En'owkin International School of Writing, the University of Victoria's BFA in Creative Writing program and the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Richard has written over twenty-six books in just about every genre, including Little You and We Sang You Home, both beautifully illustrated by Julie Flett. He lives in Edmonton.


Internationally renowned storyteller and award-winning author Richard Van Camp is a proud member of the Tłı̨chǫ Dene from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. A graduate of the En'owkin International School of Writing, the University of Victoria's BFA in Creative Writing program and the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Richard has written over twenty-six books in just about every genre, including Little You and We Sang You Home, both beautifully illustrated by Julie Flett. He lives in Edmonton.

Editorial Reviews

Framed by contributions from some of our brightest Indigenous intellectuals, Sonny Assu’s canvas is more than an examination of how Indigenous Peoples respond to the Canadian experience. His witty and gentle hand offers Canada a mirror to consider its own scarred identity.

— Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

"A necessary addition to . . . contemporary indigenous art in Canada and beyond."

— BC Studies

This book, an appropriate resource for secondary students, contains many beautiful reproductions of Sonny Assu’s art and several analyses discussing his work. His pieces exhibit several strong influences: pop culture; the reclamation of classic art (Emily Carr and others); and the use of traditional West Coast form lines and media . . . Educators and students will find numerous access points through his bold expressions and the enlightening expositions. This resource offers many opportunities to examine our nation’s beliefs, actions, words, and legislation.

— Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools

The pieces feel young, brash, modern, and playful, often speaking directly to current First Nations and Canadian politics.

— Paul Kuttner, Cultural Organizing

The visually driven book highlights the artist’s work, with accompanying essays by contemporaries and Assu himself. Assu’s art leaps from medium to medium and includes graphic art, carvings, prints, photography and combinations of each.

— High Country News

It’s surprising to realize that Assu, a three-time Sobey Art Award long-lister, with a long exhibition list and work in important collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Vancouver Art Gallery, graduated from Vancouver’s Emily Carr University only in 2002. His rise has been swift, his work sure-footed from the start, and he has been prolific in his exploration of installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking and painting. The book’s title, A Selective History, might sound presumptuous for one just edging into his 40s, but it fits both the artist’s personal trajectory and the wrongs of the past that his work confronts.

— GalleriesWest

Assu's mastery over his craft extends to an aesthetic refusal deeply tied to his ancestral teachings, his family, his territory and his community. With his practice, documented extensively in the anthology, Assu wants you to know that he will always be, at his core, a nerdy-boy troublemaker for his people.

— Lindsay Nixon, Canadian Art

This brilliant book not only provides readers with an overview of the career of one of Canada’s most important artists but also links his development to the contemporary creative practices of First Nations artists in BC politics and history—the intersection of stories with visual expression. All this unveils historical truths and artistic insights that elevate Sonny Assu to greatness.

— Dr. Ron Burnett, Order of Canada, Order of BC, President, Emily Carr University

“This brilliant book not only provides readers with an overview of the career of one of Canada’s most important artists but also links his development to the contemporary creative practices of First Nations artists in BC politics and history—the intersection of stories with visual expression. All this unveils historical truths and artistic insights that elevate Sonny Assu to greatness."

—Dr. Ron Burnett, Order of Canada, Order of BC. President and vice-chancellor, Emily Carr University of Art and Design

— Emily Carr University of Art and Design

It’s surprising to realize that Assu, a three-time Sobey Art Award long-lister, with a long exhibition list and work in important collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Vancouver Art Gallery, graduated from Vancouver’s Emily Carr University only in 2002. His rise has been swift, his work sure-footed from the start, and he has been prolific in his exploration of installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking and painting. The book’s title, A Selective History, might sound presumptuous for one just edging into his 40s, but it fits both the artist’s personal trajectory and the wrongs of the past that his work confronts.

— GalleriesWest

Sonny Assu’s eclectic blending of formline aesthetic and popular culture is amplified by a medley of contributors’ voices telling stories, revealing history, and setting the stage for Assu’s critiques of past and current colonial atrocities. The essays provide key insights into current modes of resilience and resistance by Assu and his generation of Indigenous artists, while his clever artist statements, through humour and biting commentary, reveal obsessions with popular culture, ignorance of stinging histories, and demand that we question personal responsibility.

— Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, curator of Northwest Native Art, Burke Museum

"Framed by contributions from some of our brightest Indigenous intellectuals, Sonny Assu’s canvas is more than an examination of how Indigenous Peoples respond to the Canadian experience. His witty and gentle hand offers Canada a mirror to consider its own scarred identity."

—Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

— Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

This book, an appropriate resource for secondary students, contains many beautiful reproductions of Sonny Assu’s art and several analyses discussing his work. His pieces exhibit several strong influences: pop culture; the reclamation of classic art (Emily Carr and others); and the use of traditional West Coast form lines and media . . . Educators and students will find numerous access points through his bold expressions and the enlightening expositions. This resource offers many opportunities to examine our nation’s beliefs, actions, words, and legislation.

— Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools

The visually driven book highlights the artist’s work, with accompanying essays by contemporaries and Assu himself. Assu’s art leaps from medium to medium and includes graphic art, carvings, prints, photography and combinations of each.

— High Country News

"Sonny Assu’s eclectic blending of formline aesthetic and popular culture is amplified by a medley of contributors’ voices telling stories, revealing history, and setting the stage for Assu’s critiques of past and current colonial atrocities. The essays provide key insights into current modes of resilience and resistance by Assu and his generation of Indigenous artists, while his clever artist statements, through humour and biting commentary, reveal obsessions with popular culture, ignorance of stinging histories, and demand that we question personal responsibility"

—Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, curator of Northwest Native Art, Burke Museum

— Burke Museum

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