John Feodorov: Assimilations. Curator-Mentor: Ruba Katrib

JOHN FEODOROV

137­ West 25th Street New York, NY 10001

cuear tfoundation.org

JOHN FEODOROV Assimilations

Curator-Mentor: RUBA KATRIB

February 25 - March 31, 2021

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Collectibles #7, 2007 Archival giclĂŠe print 24 x 36 inches

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ASSIMILATIONS John Feodorov

I am a multi-media artist working in painting, drawing, assemblage, installation, video, and music.

My most recent work addresses themes surrounding assimilation, identity, and the enduring ramifications of colonization. My experience growing up half-Navajo and half-white within the suburbs of Los Angeles continues to influence my creative work. Not feeling fully connected to either culture has made life complicated, and this is a situation that many urban-born Indigenous people, as well as children from immigrant families, find themselves in. Many of us cannot speak the language of our parents or grandparents.

At times we can feel that our very existence is a threat to the survival of our own cultures. Yet this sense of cultural exile has also provided me with unique perspectives that I regularly draw upon as an artist.

Perhaps tension is an essential component to making compelling art. I know that my doubts about my identity and cultural connections propel me to question and examine my own assumptions, as well as those 4

passed down to me by family, religion, history, education, and even the art world. However, my work does not attempt to proclaim alternative truths, but instead ponders questions regarding the kinds of truths we cling to, and why.

Lately, the biggest questions I have been wrestling with have to do with issues of cultural assimilation, particularly in light of the recent revival of nationalism and antiimmigrant attitudes both here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. My work questions assumptions about identity and the ways in which generational memory and contemporary politics influence how we think of ourselves.

In my daily life, I refuse to allow the erroneous (and sometimes ludicrous) assumptions of others to define how I think and talk about myself. However, as an artist, I work to turn those assumptions back on themselves. Instead of rebuking these assumptions, I ask the viewer to recognize themselves within their own questions, and hopefully think about their own identities, who they think they are, and why.

Collectibles #6, 2008 Archival giclée print 24 x 36 inches

Of mixed Navajo (Diné) and Euro-American heritage, John Feodorov grew up in the suburbs of Southern California in the city of Whittier. As a child, his family made annual visits to his grandparents’ land on the Navajo Reservation. His time spent there continues to inform his art. Feodorov both engages and confronts the viewer through questioning assumptions about identity, spirituality, and place within the context of consumerdriven culture. Recently, his work has focused on the exploitation and degradation of Indigenous lands by governments and corporations, and its potential impact on identity, connection, and sense of place.

Feodorov has been featured in several publications, including Time and Time Again by Lucy R. Lippard; Art + Religion, edited by Aaron Rosen; and Manifestations, edited by Dr. Nancy Marie Mithlo. He was also featured in the first season of the series Art 21: Art for the 21st Century. He is co-founder of Animal Saint, an interdisciplinary art collaboration with composer and musician Paul Amiel. Feodorov served as an Arts Commissioner for the City of Seattle from 2000-03 and holds the position of Associate Professor of Art at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University in Washington State.

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RUBA KATRIB Curator-Mentor “A superb work of art that will allow you to share a moment of great beauty and the Indian style spirit” reads a text superimposed on a photograph of a family eating around the table, probably taken sometime in the 1970s. Their faces are all obscured with white ovals. This image is one from a series of works by John Feodorov that explores his own biography and its entanglement with settler colonialism. Through a selection of family photographs taken between the 1940s and the 1980s, Feodorov treads through the past, as well as the present, via his own relations.

By contrasting the family members featured in the photographs with fragments of marketing language used by purveyors of kitsch termed “Native American,” Feodorov underscores not only the stereotypes and clichés, but the vast hollowness as well as harm in many settler representations of Native American cultures to this day. Throughout Feodorov’s work, a range of defining institutions converge and are at odds.

These include formal and informal institutions of culture, of nation, of faith, and of belonging. It is actually the impossibilities, as well as the traumas, of reconciliation that needle and probe the works in his exhibition, Assimilations.

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As Feodorov mines his family history, which is also part of the brutal and ongoing history of colonialism in the United States, he also unpacks it into the present.

At once personal, Feodorov speaks to the catastrophic effects in the severing of bonds that propel one into another time and place. He considers how, through this severing, parts of oneself can become spread out, even unrecognizable, and how different languages and stories are needed in order to put them back together.

Thus, many of Feodorov’s works are an act of stitching. Saidiya Hartman aptly points to this estrangement characteristic of colonial violence when she writes in her book, Lose Your Mother: “Being a stranger concerns not only matters of familiarity, belonging, and exclusion but as well involves a particular relation to the past.

If the past is another country, then I am its citizen.”1 It is also in this manner that the past plays out in Feodorov’s works. Not as something done and gone, but as an ever-evolving condition that he must form and reform in the present.

1 Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (New York: Macmillan, 2008), 17.

Collectibles #10, 2008 Archival giclée print 24 x 32 inches

Ruba Katrib is Curator at MoMA PS1 in New York, where she has curated exhibitions such as Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011 (co-organized with Peter Eleey); the retrospective of Simone Fattal in 2019; and the solo shows of Edgar Heap of Birds, Karrabing Collective, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, and Julia Phillips.

From 2012–2018 she was Curator at SculptureCenter in New York, where she curated over twenty exhibitions including 74 million

million million tons (co-organized with artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan) and solo shows with artists including Carissa Rodriguez, Kelly Akashi, Teresa Burga, Nicola L., Charlotte Prodger, Aki Sasamoto, Cosima von Bonin, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Anthea Hamilton, Gabriel Sierra, Erika Verzutti, and Jumana Manna.

In 2018, Katrib co-curated SITE Santa Fe’s biennial, Casa Tomada, with José Luis Blondet and Candice Hopkins.

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How I Learned To Be A Christ-jun, 2020 2 hymn books, a Navajo bible, 24 decoupaged hymns on gold-painted wooden plaques, and two-channel audio loop Dimensions variable

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I Cannot Speak My Mother’s Language, 2018 Acrylic, latex, collage, graphite, and wax crayon on wood panel 55 x 33 inches

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Land-Memory Improvisation #1, 2020 Acrylic, graphite, charcoal, ink, wax pencil, and collage on wood panel 41 x 48 inches

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Land-Memory Improvisation #2, 2020 Acrylic, graphite, medium, ink, plastic, and collage on wood panel 41.5 x 48 inches

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THIS SPREAD Land-Memory Improvisation #3, 2020 Acrylic, latex, graphite, medium, ink, bird wing, and collage on wood panel 42 x 48 inches NEXT SPREAD Gas Pump Triptych, 2019 Acrylic, latex, collage, contĂŠ, and graphite on three prints 40 x 72 inches

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Assimilation #1, 2020 Acrylic, latex, collage, and artificial grass on wood panel 49.75 x 42 inches

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Assimilation #2, 2020 Acrylic, latex, graphite, needlepoint, and collage on wood panel 48 x 42 inches

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Assimilation #4, 2020 Acrylic, latex, ink, collage, graphite and wax crayon on wood panel 48 x 42 inches

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME Asia Tail in conversation with John Feodorov

You’re going, but it might be the wrong way. Black planes, birds, and brushstrokes travel out in all directions. Still, there is a feeling of being stuck, like you’ve paused on a back road trying to decipher an upside down map. Horizons jump forward or out of the way. Houses emerge, and sometimes turn into gas pumps. Familiar pictures break the surface like intruding thoughts, only to recede behind wall upon wall of opaque paint. A patch of plastic grass. What’s left of a wing.

Rainbows prove unreliable for navigation. It’s hard to tell which way is home.

The works that make up John Feodorov’s exhibition, Assimilations, capture the feeling of being caught in-between destinations—geographically, culturally, and ideologically. In the paintings and prints on view, he layers intuitive gestures in acrylic and ink over collaged family photographs, historical documents, found materials, or American tourist kitsch. Elsewhere in the gallery, he creates an altarlike space with religious books from his personal archives that 26

simultaneously represent precious family keepsakes and the tools of colonial conversion. Across the exhibition, he combines diverse materials, and references possibly contradictory experiences, without letting things settle or become dogmatic. Some of the signs used are universal, like a flipped American flag, while other moments shift subtly in meaning depending on who is looking. The work feels bittersweet and almost funny, but in a way where you can’t be sure if the artist is laughing with you or at you. And on top of it all, or in spite of it, there is an obvious joy in the handling of pigments and the process of making.

John Feodorov (Diné/EuroAmerican) grew up in Southern California, spending summers with his grandparents on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. In his teenage years he became a Jehovah's Witness with his mother, but reformed when he left for school to pursue art. He received his BFA from California State University, and his MFA from Vermont College. He now lives in Washington with his family. He works in painting and assemblage,

and often collaborates across disciplines, including printmaking, performance, writing, music, filmmaking, and other forms.

He has been featured in the PBS series Art21, as well as in numerous publications, collections, and exhibitions at institutions like the Seattle Art Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, and the National Museum of the American Indian. In addition to his creative endeavors, John regularly serves on arts commissions and selection panels, curates community projects, and advocates for young artists.

After years of nearly crossing paths in the Seattle Native arts community, I met John (virtually) for the first time on a smoky day in September 2020. He was getting ready to teach the fall quarter at Fairhaven College at Western Washington University, and was generous with his answers to my many questions, like good teachers often are. We spoke about what he’s been working on, and his upcoming solo exhibition at CUE Art Foundation in New York.

Asia Tail: How are you? Have the many things happening in 2020 impacted your practice at all?

John Feodorov: Surprisingly not much, except for forcing me to do more work because I can’t go anywhere. While I’ve been home, I bought several books to challenge myself—a nice, big de Kooning book, also some Kiefer, and I’m re-looking at my Rick Bartow book.

I’ve tried to think more about the material, not to change my way of painting, but to put it at an equal

consideration as the concept.

That’s been fun. It reminds me why I love to paint.

AT: Great to hear. You’ve already mentioned a few, but I’m interested in your influences.

JF: I do like de Kooning from a certain period, but otherwise I’m not big on abstract expressionism.

When I was young, my influences were Max Beckmann and Otto Dix. I’ve always liked Germans.

Maybe because there was so much turmoil in Germany, and how artists were dealing with it through their work speaks to me.

And of course in my mid-20s I got to know Jaune Quick–to–See Smith and James Luna. They became mentors and were early influences on my work, especially in how to express being Native. No one was doing that like them then. It was revolutionary.

AT: That sounds like such a pivotal moment. How did they impact you?

JF: James—he showed me how I could be Native without becoming a stereotype, or playing a part. I’ve always been hesitant to identify myself as a Navajo artist. I felt like I had no credibility as an urban Indian who was raised Christian.

And back then, when I saw the work of earlier Native artists, not to dis them at all, but I just couldn’t identify with them. That world seemed foreign to me. I felt like the enemy, like an infiltrator. I still kind of feel that—it’s very much a theme behind the CUE show. But James Luna showed me that how I was feeling in my experience had 27

validity, and that it could be an important perspective that wasn't necessarily out there at that time.

AT: You said that your CUE exhibition is focusing on some of these ideas, particularly assimilation?

JF: Yes, it’s a big topic. Assimilation certainly is part of the Native experience as we are increasingly coming from reservation lands into urban environments—my mother became a first generation settler in her own right when she left Navajo territory. As kids of that experience, how does that fuck us up? How do you succeed within the colonizing culture and not be seen as a traitor by your own people? It’s a complexity that is still going on.

I don't know how that ever gets resolved. I guess the danger is that it is resolved. Then does the termination policy win? Do we become completely absorbed into the American fantasy? There is pressure to keep some sense of purity. And there is the racist part of the word purity, and then there is the cultural survival part of the word. Again I’m left questioning these constant dualities.

AT: I mean, to be Native now feels almost more defined by all these questions than anything else.

JF: I guess that’s the thing, ultimately I’m questioning the political ramifications of not being white—not just in terms of skin color, but in outlook. What first got me interested in making this body of work was—well, obviously Trump—as well as the rise in unmasking nationalist racist 28

tendencies worldwide. Even though the works in this exhibition are referencing my personal experience, my hope is that they are understood as being much broader than that. These issues of identity are at the heart of what's happening right now, in terms of backwards immigration policies, Brexit, and so on.

AT: Given the political reality you mention, with Covid and everything else, for me it’s been hard not to question the point of art-making lately. How do you balance what’s happening in the world with what’s happening in your studio?

JF: My work is certainly dealing with things that are political, but I don't see myself as an activist artist. As I tell my students, we are in a boat that’s leaking. A hole appears and water starts rushing in, and someone runs over to that hole to plug it; another hole appears and they run over, and another one, and another. At a certain point someone has to ask—why is this boat leaking? To me, that is the job of artists.

Being the visual wing of a propaganda machine is completely uninteresting to me. Maybe the artist has to be suspected by everyone, even the movements and ideologies they agree with. Another thing I tell my students: artists need to be like a flea on a dog. The goal is to not become the dog, but to make sure the dog never gets too comfortable.

AT: That makes sense to me. You mentioned that recently you’ve

Collectibles #11, 2008 Archival giclée print 32.75 x 24 inches

been focusing on your materials.

What does your process look like?

JF: I do some conceptual planning, but the paintings have to be almost completely improvised. I start by covering a wood panel with scanned pages from Pentacostal hymn books in the Navajo language, or satellite images of New Mexico, where

my mother grew up; then I react.

I’m not consciously thinking of these contexts when painting, but I’m manipulating myself into subconsciously responding.

They are never completely calculated because that would just bore the hell out of me. So here's the thing: I also want to have fun when I paint. There are lots of more lucrative ways of not 29

Even with the more conceptual series, they are fun for me in the development of the idea. But it's never about just making visual jokes. I need to feel like I can both laugh and cry at the same time. I want things to linger and fester.

AT: Well, that seems like as good a place to leave it as any.

Final thoughts?

Asia Tail is an artist, curator, and organizer based in Seattle, Washington.

She is a co-founder , of y haw, an Indigenous artist collective, and works as a creative consultant with various organizations locally and nationally.

Asia is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and a proud member of the diverse urban Native community in the Pacific Northwest. e

having fun. This isn't a completely intellectual process. I want to see what the paint does when I do this or that—it’s experimentation.

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Mentor Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary JF: I can have all these intentions art, intersectional feminisms and and ideas, but they are useless other forms of politics, and how once the work is done. Once museums shape our views of it’s out there, it is either going to each other and the world. Her do its job or not. And the viewer most recent book, Whitewalling: is either going to do their job Art, Race, and Protest in 3 Acts or not, because they have a (Badlands Unlimited), was named responsibility, too. one of the best art books of 2018 by the New York Times. Her work * appears regularly on 4Columns. org, where she is a member of the This text was written as part of the editorial advisory board, and has Art Critic Mentoring Program, also been published in The Wall a partnership between AICAStreet Journal, CNN.com, Art News, USA (US section of International Garage, Bookforum, Momus, Art in Association of Art Critics) and CUE, America, and Art Practical, among which pairs emerging writers with other places. She is currently AICA-USA mentors to produce editing two forthcoming volumes, original essays on a specific Making It Modern: A Linda Nochlin exhibiting artist. Please visit Reader and Lorraine O’Grady’s aicausa.org for more information Writing in Space 1973-2018, and on AICA-USA, or cueartfoundation. is co-curator of the upcoming org to learn how to participate in retrospective of O’Grady’s work, this program. Any quotes are from Both/And, which will open in March interviews with the author unless 2021 at the Brooklyn Museum. otherwise specified. No part of this essay may be reproduced without prior consent from the author. Lilly Wei is AICA’s Coordinator for the program this season.

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CUE Art Foundation is a visual arts center dedicated to creating essential career and educational opportunities for artists of all ages.

Through exhibitions, arts education, and public programs, CUE provides artists, writers, and audiences with sustaining, meaningful experiences and resources. CUE’s exhibition program aims to present new and exceptionally strong work by under-recognized and emerging artists based in the United States, and is committed to exhibiting work of all disciplines.

This exhibition is a winning selection from the 2020-21 Open Call for Solo Exhibitions. The proposal was unanimously selected by a panel comprised of artist Guadalupe Maravilla, curator Sohrab Mohebbi, artist Ronny Quevedo, and curator Legacy Russell. In line with CUE’s commitment to providing substantive professional development opportunities, panelists also serve as mentors to the exhibiting artists, providing support throughout the process of developing the exhibition. Originally paired with Sohrab Mohebbi, due to unforseen circumstances Mohebbi was unable to continue the work. We are honored that the curator Ruba Katrib was able to step in as the curator-mentor to John Feodorov.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Amanda Adams-Louis Theodore S. Berger Kate Buchanan Vernon Church Marcy Cohen Blake Horn Thomas K.Y. Hsu Steffani Jemison John S. Kiely Vivian Kuan Rachel Maniatis Aliza Nisenbaum Kyle Sheahen Lilly Wei Gregory Amenoff, Emeritus

ADVISORY COUNCIL Polly Apfelbaum Katie Cercone Lynn Crawford Ian Cooper Michelle Grabner Eleanor Heartney Trenton Doyle Hancock Pablo Helguera Paddy Johnson Deborah Kass Sharon Lockhart Juan Sánchez Lilly Wei Andrea Zittel Irving Sandler (in memoriam)

STAFF Corina Larkin Executive Director Beatrice Wolert-Weese Deputy Director Lilly Hern-Fondation Programs Director Sharmistha Ray Development Manager Josephine Heston Programs Associate

137­ West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 cueartfoundation.org 31

CUE Art Foundation's programs are made possible with the generous support of foundations, government agencies, corporations, and individuals.

MAJOR PROGRAMMATIC SUPPORT PROVIDED BY The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Anholt Services (USA), Inc. Aon PLC Chubb

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP Clifford Chance

Compass Group Management LLC ING Financial Services Merrill Corporation

The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Inc. The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation Wilhelm Family Foundation

William Talbott Hillman Foundation

New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

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All ar twork Š John Feodorov.

Cover image: Detail of Assimilation #3.

Catalogue design by Lilly Hern-Fondation.