DO NOT DANCE FOR PAY // HOCK E AYE VI EDGAR HEAP OF BIRDS’ HONOR SONG AT OKLAHOMA CONTEMPORARY by Molly Murphy Adams
From late February through July, Oklahoma Contemporary
insists that he aims to take action rather than illustrate
hosts Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds: HONOR SONG,
or merely respond. His works in signage demonstrate this
an expansive and ambitious retrospective of works by
mastery of editing and intentionality and cross the lines
Oklahoma artist Edgar Heap of Birds (enrolled Cheyenne
between physical art, activism, poetry, and performance
Arapaho Tribes). The exhibition introduces Oklahoma
art—a significant achievement for prints with only a few
viewers to a 50-year career of art making, teaching, and
words.
activism by a leading Indigenous artist and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I say “introduces” because, though Heap of Birds is from Oklahoma and lives here now, much of his work has necessarily been created and exhibited in far-flung locations. HONOR SONG brings Heap of Birds’ artistic legacy home and showcases his ability to engage viewers in questioning assumptions about authority, history, and who gets to employ authority in telling our history. The exhibition focuses primarily on bold, conceptual signage works in an array of media including works on paper, commercially manufactured signs, printed semi-functional objects such as tote bags and skateboard decks, and digital
creating a grid of assemblages of words or mini poems. This installation consists of 24 monoprints on paper arranged in a grid with each monoprint printed in a range of navy and turquoise inks with white text. The piece is simplicity and mass all at once. One might feel compelled to figure or tease out the meaning intended, to find a pattern or connection between the words in each individual print and the collective meaning of the whole. These signage works, in all mediums, engage viewers directly and invite them to listen, interpret, and debate. Heap of Birds thus attempts to puncture or disrupt harmful and disingenuous narratives about Indigenous history and present reality.
photos recording ephemeral installations and events such
In Do Not Dance for Pay the urgent message is reduced to
as digital signs and temporary billboards. Other types of
five single-syllable words. The words appear at a distance
work include Heap of Birds’ Neuf series in glass and painting
to have been painted quickly, almost in the style of vintage
mediums, presenting exercises in meditative repeating
grocery store ads with all-caps text, apparently painted by
patterns that reveal the artist’s internal perspective and
hand, floating above a weathered surface background. The
aesthetic. A view of Heap of Birds’ studio shows the many
text’s casual, almost slapdash appearance is a ruse as it has
modes of work in the exhibit including glass sculpture,
been meticulously printed in an array of colors on textured
painting on canvas, and monotype prints.
backgrounds through a slow and deliberate process. The
As an artist and art historian of mixed Indigenous and settler heritage, I find Heap of Birds’ work compelling on both artistic and activist fronts. His art often reveals what I consider a brilliant editor, and I respect the strength of purpose required to distill the work down to the most essentially compelling components. An artist’s urge to relate their message through representation and the decorative can be persistent and difficult to resist, but Heap of Birds
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In this mode, Secrets of Life and Death crosses into poetry by
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print is installed without frame or other hardware that would indicate its status as art, further conflating the pushpull between art and a throwaway public notice. Layered within these visual components is the message, “Do Not Dance For Pay”—five words laden with deep meaning to Indigenous people, who often labor to educate the wider world to the hidden history and injustice of their American CONTINUED OPPOSITE // Edgar Heap of Birds, Telling Many Magpies, Telling Black Wolf, Telling Hachivi, 1989. Screenprint diptych. 17 5/16” x 45 1/8” | All images © Edgar Heap of Birds and courtesy of the artist unless otherwise specified.