NORVAL MORRISSEAU:
ARTIST AS SHAMAN
FEATURE ARTICLE BY BARRY ACE

In tandem with Norval Morrisseau’s upcoming exhibition at Canada’s National Gallery, artist/curator Barry Ace examines the myths of Morrisseau’s “Ishi-like” primitivism, his exotic Anishnaabe heritage and sacred Midewiwin spiritual teachings that created a public symbol of Morrisseau as shaman. This construct contributed to a successful marketing ploy to lure an avaricious art buying public to own a fragment of an “authentic mythical past.”

While Morrisseau was shielded from outside critical scrutiny, those around him were less successful in controlling cynicism and scrutiny from within his own Anishnaabe cultural milieu. It is from this unique cultural vantage point that we can only now begin to meticulously unravel and dissect the very premise and raison d’etre behind the social construction of this Anishnaabe Medusa called Norval Morrisseau.
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INUIT ART, MADE BY THE BOOK?
ARTICLE BY HEATHER IGLOLIORTE

In 1951 the Canadian Guild of Crafts, funded by the Department of Resources and Development and in co-operation with the Hudson’s Bay Company, published an instructional pamphlet entitled Sunuyusuk: Eskimo Handicrafts. Written and illustrated by the Guild’s Arctic Representative, James Houston, the pamphlet offered suggestions to the Inuit on what they should make, what materials to use, and how they should make Inuit art that would sell to a Southern market.
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RON NOGANOSH
ARTIST PROFILE

ACC FEATURED ARTIST, Ojibway sculptor and painter,
Ron Noganosh, is often acerbic, political and ironic. View his work and read about this controversial mixed media sculptor, now on Canada's A List of artists.
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