To be honest when I first was his work I totally type casted him I said "Oh here comes another person who thinks everyone mocks his culture and thinks stuff that just isn't so." but I was totally wrong. James Luna's work is totally different from what I thought. His work ventures not only into stereotypical fashions but also into political parts. His art is about what and how he think people perceive his culture, with him being an American Indian I can see where his inspiration comes from. His work also depicts problems within his own race such as substance abuse, sexuality among other things.
Here are a few examples of his work and why I actually chose to show these.
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This piece is really cool and really true. If you cover half of the face of James he does look Mexican and on the other half he does look Indian. I thought this was funny because I remember watching a Jamie Foxxx comedy special a while back and he mentioned that there were actually Mexicans playing Indians during a Thanksgiving Day Parade going as far as to say one of the Indians were Jennifer Lopez.
In this piece I saw it as just true and a little sad. James Luna is playing.......welll himself. An Indian. I would go as far as to say Indians are an endangered species or anything but They are pretty rare to see around. I think within my life time i've only known 1 Indian and he was half Indian and Mexican.
I don't know the name of this piece or anything about it but to be honest I really like this piece it's so powerful you can come up with your own assumptions and probably get it right. To me this says what we as civilians see Indians who live on reservations to wear shoes like this. This piece also had me wondering is there any Indian NBA players. So that also can be a reason this piece was made. Maybe Glenn will know.
High Tech Peace Pipe
To my understanding this piece is about asking the greater powers to not use political power to decide grudge matches or wars but use peacefully matters like talk it over and stuff.
The (red) phone represents the phone US and Moscow would use to communicate during the Cold War and the peace pipe is used as the talking piece to give you the feeling of no political talking is necessary only thing that is is that we bond as brothers.
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All in all I like his work and totally misjudged him.
James Luna is look different from other artists because his work ventures not only into stereotypical fashions but also into political parts. His art is about what and how he think people perceive his culture.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw his "Half Mexican/Half Indian" work, I thought it is a cool art that I never seen before. It is fun if I cover half of the face of James he does look Mexican and on the other half he does look Indian.