Brian Jungen

Last weekend my family and I took a trip to DC to revisit the American Indian Museum. We knew that they were having a visiting group from Argentina, but we didn't know about a new temporary exhibit they were doing. Oh were we in for a surprise.....

This new exhibit was a solo show for a Brian Jungen, a Dunne-za tribe member from British Columbia. His approach to is work is jaw dropping and very strange. His medium qualifies as found objects, but the materials all look very new. His imagery focuses on traditional indigenous designs and subject matter, consumerism, pop culture, and environmental awareness. For example, a raven mask made out of Nike Air Jordan's



and a skull made out of softball skins;


And one of my favorites, a warrior made out of baseball gloves!


Jungen wrote a little excerpt for this piece which is explains it, and made me laugh. He explained that he has always had an interest in sports, but finds the use of native languages, imagery, and bastardized practices by North American sports teams offensive. If this is considered to be acceptable to use sports equipment in his art.

Just around the corner from "The Prince" was a small whale skeleton made out of white plastic chairs (it was small for a whale, maybe 15-25 feet long). This piece symbolized the carelessness of modern man towards the environment, which is killing these massive marine mammals. This message really hit home with me, and relates back to part of my theme of my senior seminar work.