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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 8
Lesson 3: 1870-now- Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
- Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
- When department stores were new: women in the American city
- Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player
- A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas's Aspiration
- Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers
- Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
- Beauford Delaney's portrait of Marian Anderson
- Barbara Zucker, Mix, Stir, Pour (White Floor Piece)
- Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cleaning the museum—maintenance art
- Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture
- Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
- Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye
- Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
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Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
Harry Fonseca's painting "Two Coyotes and Flags" uses pop art and symbolism to explore complex identities. The coyotes, dressed in Plains-style headdresses and American flags, challenge stereotypes of Indigenous cultures. The bright pink backdrop and Converse sneakers hint at Fonseca's queer identity. The painting serves as a commentary on the overlapping identities of being Indigenous, American, and queer. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(upbeat jazz piano Music) - [Male Narrator] We're in
the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa Oklahoma looking at a large playful canvas by Harry Fonseca called,
"Two Coyotes and Flags". - [Female Narrator] In this
painting, we see two coyotes as human figures. One
sitting, one standing, very cartoonish in nature and whimsical. They are wearing Plain style headdresses holding tomahawks and
drapes over the shoulder with American flags. They're both wearing
Converse sneakers style shoes and they're against this
flat bright pink backdrop. What's significant to note
here about the headdress is it's a war bonnet, it's
given in ceremonial practice, it's sacred. And yet it's often used as a symbol to homogenize
Indigenous cultures as one. Fonseca is Maidu and Maidu would not traditionally wear a war bonnet. So he's just playing on this stereotype of this homogenized Indigenous image. - [Male Narrator] That bright
bubble gum pink background feels so artificial. This is an image that we can recognize as being part of this larger
movement that we call Pop Art. - [Female Narrator] He's
also purposely using this to express his Queer identity, and that is seen in the Converse sneakers, which calls back to the
Castro Clone, which is a super hyper-masculine
style worn by men both hiding and expressing their Queer
identity and Fonseca is from Sacramento So he would've been privy to this particular style. And it's shown in a lot of his work where his coyote is usually
wearing leather jackets, the white tank top jeans. - [Male Narrator] He's
replaced the leather jacket with the American flag. - [Female Narrator] He's draping
these figures in the flag in a way that wouldn't
be appropriate according to the U.S. Legion Flag Code. Flags are not to be worn, they're not to be touching the ground. It's draped over him like it's
part of the Indigenous dress; like it's a blanket. These stereotypes of the Plain's
headdress and the tomahawk. He is saying that America is wrapped up in an idea of what Indigenous identity is. - [Male Narrator] So the
flag here is being used as a subversive tool. - [Female Narrator] The
average American has no idea what the life and experience
of the Indigenous person is. I think he does well to
remind Americans of that, but he's still placing himself here. He is struggling with his own identity as an Indigenous person,
as somebody who has served for the U.S. Navy, as
somebody who has to be both an American and an Indigenous person. - [Male Narrator] And that
idea of overlapping identities is referenced in a subtle way
in the identity of the coyote as a trickster figure
in Native traditions. - [Female Narrator] In oral traditions, the coyote is both a
helper and a trickster in that he's ready to fool everyone but he ends up fooling himself. - [Male Narrator] Fonseca
does present himself as coyote in the large
series of paintings. - [Female Narrator] Coyote takes
on a lot of different roles in his paintings. Coyote could be anywhere
from an opera singer to a piano player. You know, he's up to something. - [Male Narrator] Fonseca's
coyote is a performer. He is here staging his complex identity. - [Female Narrator] The
headdresses are frenetic compared to the solid background. - [Male Narrator] That activated
brushwork is set against these broad pools of color,
the pinks, the blues, the lavenders, the reds and whites. Often overlapping on outlines
creating this liquid quality to those surfaces. Then there are these drips
which have to remind anybody who's looking at this painting
of earlier Mid-Century Abstract Expressionism and
exactly what this painting is not doing in its Pop orientation. - [Female Narrator] And I
think the drips are also trying to make it seem
like an antique photograph referencing Edward Curtis and the way he posed Indigenous people for his photographs in
this stereotypical way. - [Male Narrator] Curtis asked his sitters to don traditional regalia
even if it wasn't the clothing that they would normally wear. And those photographs
became powerful references throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, even though they were misleading. - [Female Narrator] Fonseca
here is using the stereotype of Indigenous identity
as a commentary on Curtis and making people think
about the complex identities that go beyond just Indigeneity. There's American identity,
there's Queer identity and then there's personal identity. And he identifies with the coyote because he can take this stereotype and fool the average
viewer who isn't going to assume these identities. (upbeat jazz piano Music)