Mick Hartley

Last week's story about artist Amanda PL, and the cancellation of her Toronto show, is of course so much bullshit:

Outrage over a Toronto artist borrowing from the style of an acclaimed Indigenous painter has prompted a gallery to cancel its plans for an upcoming exhibit.

Visions Gallery had planned to showcase the work of Amanda PL, 29, a local non-Indigenous artist who says she was inspired by the Woodlands style made famous in the '60s by the Anishinabe artist Norval Morrisseau, who focussed on nature, animals, Indigenous spirituality and medicine.

But within hours of the gallery's email announcement promoting the exhibit, there was a backlash, with people alleging that PL had appropriated Indigenous culture and art.

Chippewa artist Jay Soule was among those leading the charge. He argues PL blatantly copied Morrisseau with virtually no regard for the storytelling behind his work.

"What she's doing is essentially cultural genocide…."

Jesus. With that attitude we'd have no Rock music, no Reggae, no Rock'n'Roll. No nothing. Just about all art borrows – or steals. Picasso and other modernists borrowed from African art; the Renaissance Italians took from the Greeks. And so on…and on, and on.

Cultural appropriation may be a fair charge - but cultural genocide?? With that kind of rhetorical overkill, the man loses any credibility.

But (via Ophelia B) the "Indigenous" Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau (the "Picasso of the North") who this Amanda PL was inspired by (or ripped off, depending on your point of view), is indeed rather fabulous. These from the Coghlan Art Gallery:

"Dreaming of the Astral Plane" circa 1995

"Otter And Circle Of Life" circa 1991

"Giant Moose" circa 1995

"Shaman Talking To The Animals" 1990

"The Hunter" circa 1995

At least Amanda PL acknowledged her debt to Morrisseau. Quite a few others, it seems, just faked or forged his work.