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Dana Claxton: Headdress
Hunkpapa Lakota artist Dana Claxton's first international First Nations Banner Series commission, pairing regalia-adorned portraiture with redacted FBI surveillance files on Indigenous activism.
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Preview: written before the show opened
One image shows a family whose faces are hidden behind strands of beads, shells and feathers, shot in the glossy style of a fashion spread. The other reproduces declassified FBI surveillance files on the American Indian Movement, heavily redacted.
These are Hunkpapa Lakota artist Dana Claxton's two works for the Banner Series, which hangs on the outside of The Gunnery rather than in the galleries. She is the first international First Nations artist commissioned for it. In Shadae and her Girlz (2023), the headdress isn't ceremonial: it is assembled from gifts, trade beads and treasured objects gathered across communities. AIM (2010) shows the state's way of recording Indigenous lives.
You don't need to walk in to see it: Claxton says she wants it to reach people who aren't gallery goers. It goes up on 23 October; the indoor shows alongside it are free, Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm.
Look for
Shadae and her Girlz (2023)
Look for a family veiled in layers of beads, shells, feathers and gifted objects, posed like a fashion shoot, so the adornment replaces the faces.
AIM (2010)
Look for reproduced FBI files on the American Indian Movement, heavily redacted, so what you read is mostly what the state withheld.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
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Image credits
8
- Dana Claxton: HeaddressCourtesy of Artspace
- Nolan: OriginsCourtesy of Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Definitive DupainMax Dupain / Google Art Project, Public domain
- ArtspaceUser6499 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Art Gallery of New South WalesBidgee / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5 AU
- Hyde Park BarracksJ Bar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- State Library of New South WalesBidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Australian Museumwuppertaler / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0