When Pop Goes Your Culture
As an exploration of Andy Warhol’s appropriation of Native American cultural figures, Plains Art Museum asked photographer Joseph Allen to create a set of images in response to Warhol’s print series Cowboys and Indians. Allen will discuss his work in a public talk at the Museum on Thursday at 7 PM. In the two images, Allen challenges the viewer to question perceptions of the Native American as portrayed in art and commerce. While Warhol’s images attempt to examine such figures through the lens of pop culture, stripped of their original social significance, Allen attempts to bring the issue full circle and raise awareness of how such appropriation affects our understanding of Native American culture and history.
WHO: Joseph Allen
WHAT: “When Pop Goes Your Culture: Joseph Allen Talks Back to Andy Warhol”
WHEN: Thursday, April 18 at 7 PM
WHERE: Plains Art Museum
COST: Free and open to the public
Joseph J. Allen (Lakota/Ojibwe) currently lives on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota and has been exhibiting his art for 18 years. His photographs are in the collections of the Weisman Art Museum, the Minnesota Historical Society and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community archives. His work has also appeared in the books Beloved Child and Minnesota in Our Time: A Photographic Portrait. Joe has won awards for his work, including a “best photo spread” honor by the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) in 1998. He also won a McKnight Photography Fellowship in 1993.