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“My conscience tells me we have to fight back." -- Beau Dick
Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism (Figure.1 2019), edited by LaTiesha Fazaka, with writing by John Cussans and Candice Hopkins, was published in collaboration with Fazakas Gallery in conjunction with an exhibition that debuted at the White Columns gallery in New York City, March 16 to May 4, 2019.
In an interview done by Robin Laurence for Georgia Straight (June 2019), Fazaka recalled meeting the artist eighteen years before and thinking, "Does nobody realize that this guy is van Gogh, this guy is Duchamp, this guy is groundbreaking?... Why isn’t Beau Dick’s name on everybody’s lips? He is here in Canada and he is so amazing!"
As young man whose Kwakwaka’wakw name was Walas Gwa’yam (“Big Whale”), Beau Dick, born in Alert Bay but raised in remote Kingcome, came to the big city and partied hard with cocaine. Eventually he kicked the habit, healing himself with a return to Alert Bay and traditional spirituality.
Along the way he developed his own approaches to carving after learning his craft from artists that included his grandfather James Dick, his father Benjamin Dick, Henry Hunt, Doug Cranmer, Robert Davidson, Tony Hunt and Bill Reid.
As a high-ranking member of Hamat’sa--a secret Kwakwaka’wakw society that focusses on the story of a man-eating spirit--Beau Dick (1955–2017) increasingly danced in and led elaborate ceremonies that enacted Kwakwaka’wakw cosmology.
First Nations art critic Julian Brave NoiseCat, a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, has brilliantly responded to the travelling exhibit while summarizing Dick's consistent protests against consumerism as a form of non-violent, spiritual warfare:
"In 2008, Dick became the first artist in 50 years to return a set of Atlakima masks, to be danced and burned in ceremony at his home community of Alert Bay—an act of defiance against the economic and ethnographic imperative to collect and preserve. He repeated this cycle in 2012, to dance and burn tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of art back in Kwakwaka’wakw territory. In 2013, during the Idle No More movement, Dick made a copper crest representative of a hereditary chief’s title and wealth. With two of his daughters, Linnea and Geraldine, as well as members of his nation and an entourage of 3,000 activists, he marched the copper to the steps of the provincial capital in Victoria, where he smashed it in protest. In 2014, Dick led a similar pilgrimage to Ottawa alongside Guujaaw Edenshaw, a Haida artist and leader. On Parliament Hill, Dick, Edenshaw and First Nations leaders broke the copper to shame the government for its treatment of Indigenous peoples...”
Dick’s activism was recorded in a 2018 documentary movie Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick, written and directed by Natalie Boll and LaTiesha Fazakas.
Artist, heal, thyself. Anti-capitalism led Beau Dick to express links between the ravenous Hamat'sa spirit and rampant consumerism. His artistry and his ceremonial actions were both attempts to come to terms with voracious appetites.
"Dick was one of the best carvers in the world,” according to Julian Brave NoiseCat, “but the real power of his work lay in the possibility that he might peel his art off the wall, dance it, burn it, smash it or otherwise assert its Kwakwaka’wakw spiritual value above and beyond its exchange value."
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LaTiesha Fazakas
According to her website in 2022:
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Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism by Latiesha Fazakas with John Cussans & Candice Hopkins (Figure 1 $25)
Review by Latash-Maurice Nahanee (BCBW 2019)
For Chief Beau Dick, global destruction of our planet begins and ends with consumerism. Widespread pollution and destruction are part of humanity’s thirst for the acquisition of wealth.
Here in B.C., the commercial fishing industry largely destroyed the stocks of wild salmon. Consumption of forest products contributes to destruction of salmon habitats. Mining also adds to destruction of habitats of plants and animals. Chief Dick saw that this should not continue. Quite simply put—humans cannot eat money.
A Kwakwaka’wakw master artist from Alert Bay, Chief Dick saw with great insight the destruction of Indigenous people caused by racist policies enacted by Canadian governments. Starting with Sir John A. Macdonald there has been a war of cultural genocide against the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. For instance, these policies resulted in the loss of Indigenous land and rights. Children were apprehended and placed in Indian residential schools. They were forced to give up their languages and culture. Corporal punishment was often accompanied by sexual abuse. Children suffered through poor diets and in some cases, died of starvation.
Chief Dick was taught traditional wood sculpting by his grandfather James Dick, his father Benjamin Dick, Henry Hunt, Doug Cranmer, Robert Davidson, Tony Hunt and Bill Reid. He went on to become one of the greatest Aboriginal artists in B.C.
In 1986, Chief Dick was commissioned to carve a mask to be showcased in Expo 86 in Vancouver. The Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization) in Gatineau, Quebec, acquired this mask where it is still on display. In 1998, Chief Dick was one of only seven Canadian artists to be invited to the reopening of Canada House in London, England. In attendance were Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2013, Chief Dick performed a First Nations copper-cutting ceremony on the steps of the BC Legislature in Victoria. After a 10-day, 500 km walk from Alert Bay to Victoria, he intended to bring attention to the abuse of Indigenous people and rights by the federal government. This shaming ceremony was the first time such a practice had been used by the Kwakwaka’wakw in decades. In particular, Chief Dick focused on the enactment of the Potlatch Law to prohibit cultural traditions of the Northwest Coast First Nations and all Aboriginal people in Canada. The copper shield is a symbol of justice, truth and balance; to break one is intended as a threat and an insult. After breaking the copper shield and shaming Canada, an apology should have come from the Government of Canada followed by atonement. But Canada has been slow on atonement for the wrongs it has inflicted on First Nations. Although the Potlatch Laws were repealed in 1950, the damage caused by these draconian measures is still felt today.
Much of Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism, edited by LaTiesha Fazakas, with writing by John Cussans and Candice Hopkins, is filled with photographs depicting the art, genius, imagination and skill of Chief Dick. He said that he regarded the masks he created as regalia and not merely art. The masks were part of a larger cultural and spiritual system.
In the summer of 2012, Beau Dick created a large number of masks for a Vancouver exhibition. Midway through the show, he took back some forty masks to his home village of Alert Bay. There, they were ceremoniously burned. Chief Dick said the burning of the masks was a beginning, not an end, and that the event was part of a larger cycle. Thereafter, all the masks were recreated and the cycle of life continued.
The Potlatch is a tradition that is in stark contrast to Western consumerism. The goal of Western people is to acquire objects. The acquisition of power and wealth is a measure of success. The goal of Northwest Coast Indigenous societies is to share wealth with other members of their societies. Giving away treasures shows the greatness of an individual and their family. The more wealth that can be given away, the more prestige and high social status is accrued by an individual and clan.
How we as inhabitants of a generous Mother Earth navigate our way into the future was clearly on Beau Dick’s mind. He suggested that we take a different approach to our way of distributing the resources and wealth of our nations. We must find a balance of achieving what we need against merely acquiring for the sake of acquiring. 978-1-7732-7086-9
Latash-Maurice Nahanee is a member of the Squamish Nation. He has a bachelor of arts degree (Simon Fraser University).
Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism (Figure.1 2019), edited by LaTiesha Fazaka, with writing by John Cussans and Candice Hopkins, was published in collaboration with Fazakas Gallery in conjunction with an exhibition that debuted at the White Columns gallery in New York City, March 16 to May 4, 2019.
In an interview done by Robin Laurence for Georgia Straight (June 2019), Fazaka recalled meeting the artist eighteen years before and thinking, "Does nobody realize that this guy is van Gogh, this guy is Duchamp, this guy is groundbreaking?... Why isn’t Beau Dick’s name on everybody’s lips? He is here in Canada and he is so amazing!"
As young man whose Kwakwaka’wakw name was Walas Gwa’yam (“Big Whale”), Beau Dick, born in Alert Bay but raised in remote Kingcome, came to the big city and partied hard with cocaine. Eventually he kicked the habit, healing himself with a return to Alert Bay and traditional spirituality.
Along the way he developed his own approaches to carving after learning his craft from artists that included his grandfather James Dick, his father Benjamin Dick, Henry Hunt, Doug Cranmer, Robert Davidson, Tony Hunt and Bill Reid.
As a high-ranking member of Hamat’sa--a secret Kwakwaka’wakw society that focusses on the story of a man-eating spirit--Beau Dick (1955–2017) increasingly danced in and led elaborate ceremonies that enacted Kwakwaka’wakw cosmology.
First Nations art critic Julian Brave NoiseCat, a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie, has brilliantly responded to the travelling exhibit while summarizing Dick's consistent protests against consumerism as a form of non-violent, spiritual warfare:
"In 2008, Dick became the first artist in 50 years to return a set of Atlakima masks, to be danced and burned in ceremony at his home community of Alert Bay—an act of defiance against the economic and ethnographic imperative to collect and preserve. He repeated this cycle in 2012, to dance and burn tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of art back in Kwakwaka’wakw territory. In 2013, during the Idle No More movement, Dick made a copper crest representative of a hereditary chief’s title and wealth. With two of his daughters, Linnea and Geraldine, as well as members of his nation and an entourage of 3,000 activists, he marched the copper to the steps of the provincial capital in Victoria, where he smashed it in protest. In 2014, Dick led a similar pilgrimage to Ottawa alongside Guujaaw Edenshaw, a Haida artist and leader. On Parliament Hill, Dick, Edenshaw and First Nations leaders broke the copper to shame the government for its treatment of Indigenous peoples...”
Dick’s activism was recorded in a 2018 documentary movie Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick, written and directed by Natalie Boll and LaTiesha Fazakas.
Artist, heal, thyself. Anti-capitalism led Beau Dick to express links between the ravenous Hamat'sa spirit and rampant consumerism. His artistry and his ceremonial actions were both attempts to come to terms with voracious appetites.
"Dick was one of the best carvers in the world,” according to Julian Brave NoiseCat, “but the real power of his work lay in the possibility that he might peel his art off the wall, dance it, burn it, smash it or otherwise assert its Kwakwaka’wakw spiritual value above and beyond its exchange value."
*
LaTiesha Fazakas
According to her website in 2022:
Director and Curator LaTiesha Fazakas has been dedicated to studying contemporary Indigenous art since 1998. While completing her degree in Art History at the University of British Columbia, she worked as an art dealer in Vancouver where she gained the experience and expertise that gave her the tools to establish Fazakas Gallery in 2013.
In 2017, LaTiesha was the curatorial coordinator for Kwakwaka’wakw artist, activist, and chief Beau Dick for his participation in Documenta 14 in Athens, GR and Kassel, DE. The exhibition garnered international acclaim and launched contemporary Northwest Coast art to a global scale. Fall 2017 saw LaTiesha debut her feature-length documentary Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick – a film eight years in the making that situates Dick’s life and work within cultural and political movements while exploring crossovers into the contemporary art world. The film was featured in international film festivals, played in theatres across Canada, and was nominated for the Cultural Award at the Victoria International Film Festival.
In 2019, she curated the exhibition Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism, first shown at White Columns, New York where it was co-organized by Matthew Higgs, and then at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon. LaTiesha also authored an accompanying catalog showcasing the life and work of Beau Dick that featured essay contributions from John Cussans and Candice Hopkins.
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Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism by Latiesha Fazakas with John Cussans & Candice Hopkins (Figure 1 $25)
Review by Latash-Maurice Nahanee (BCBW 2019)
For Chief Beau Dick, global destruction of our planet begins and ends with consumerism. Widespread pollution and destruction are part of humanity’s thirst for the acquisition of wealth.
Here in B.C., the commercial fishing industry largely destroyed the stocks of wild salmon. Consumption of forest products contributes to destruction of salmon habitats. Mining also adds to destruction of habitats of plants and animals. Chief Dick saw that this should not continue. Quite simply put—humans cannot eat money.
A Kwakwaka’wakw master artist from Alert Bay, Chief Dick saw with great insight the destruction of Indigenous people caused by racist policies enacted by Canadian governments. Starting with Sir John A. Macdonald there has been a war of cultural genocide against the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. For instance, these policies resulted in the loss of Indigenous land and rights. Children were apprehended and placed in Indian residential schools. They were forced to give up their languages and culture. Corporal punishment was often accompanied by sexual abuse. Children suffered through poor diets and in some cases, died of starvation.
Chief Dick was taught traditional wood sculpting by his grandfather James Dick, his father Benjamin Dick, Henry Hunt, Doug Cranmer, Robert Davidson, Tony Hunt and Bill Reid. He went on to become one of the greatest Aboriginal artists in B.C.
In 1986, Chief Dick was commissioned to carve a mask to be showcased in Expo 86 in Vancouver. The Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization) in Gatineau, Quebec, acquired this mask where it is still on display. In 1998, Chief Dick was one of only seven Canadian artists to be invited to the reopening of Canada House in London, England. In attendance were Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2013, Chief Dick performed a First Nations copper-cutting ceremony on the steps of the BC Legislature in Victoria. After a 10-day, 500 km walk from Alert Bay to Victoria, he intended to bring attention to the abuse of Indigenous people and rights by the federal government. This shaming ceremony was the first time such a practice had been used by the Kwakwaka’wakw in decades. In particular, Chief Dick focused on the enactment of the Potlatch Law to prohibit cultural traditions of the Northwest Coast First Nations and all Aboriginal people in Canada. The copper shield is a symbol of justice, truth and balance; to break one is intended as a threat and an insult. After breaking the copper shield and shaming Canada, an apology should have come from the Government of Canada followed by atonement. But Canada has been slow on atonement for the wrongs it has inflicted on First Nations. Although the Potlatch Laws were repealed in 1950, the damage caused by these draconian measures is still felt today.
Much of Beau Dick: Devoured by Consumerism, edited by LaTiesha Fazakas, with writing by John Cussans and Candice Hopkins, is filled with photographs depicting the art, genius, imagination and skill of Chief Dick. He said that he regarded the masks he created as regalia and not merely art. The masks were part of a larger cultural and spiritual system.
In the summer of 2012, Beau Dick created a large number of masks for a Vancouver exhibition. Midway through the show, he took back some forty masks to his home village of Alert Bay. There, they were ceremoniously burned. Chief Dick said the burning of the masks was a beginning, not an end, and that the event was part of a larger cycle. Thereafter, all the masks were recreated and the cycle of life continued.
The Potlatch is a tradition that is in stark contrast to Western consumerism. The goal of Western people is to acquire objects. The acquisition of power and wealth is a measure of success. The goal of Northwest Coast Indigenous societies is to share wealth with other members of their societies. Giving away treasures shows the greatness of an individual and their family. The more wealth that can be given away, the more prestige and high social status is accrued by an individual and clan.
How we as inhabitants of a generous Mother Earth navigate our way into the future was clearly on Beau Dick’s mind. He suggested that we take a different approach to our way of distributing the resources and wealth of our nations. We must find a balance of achieving what we need against merely acquiring for the sake of acquiring. 978-1-7732-7086-9
Latash-Maurice Nahanee is a member of the Squamish Nation. He has a bachelor of arts degree (Simon Fraser University).
