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Monkman: Great Mystery Print

$375 current bid
1 Bid
FMV: $750

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Produced on the occasion of the exhibition "History Is Painted by the Victors" at the Akron Art Museum, this 2026 giclee print highlights Kent Monkman's signature technique and humor in an interpretation of his painting "The Great Mystery" (2024). Printed with archival ink on 100% cotton Legacy Fibre paper, the paper measures 24 x 18 inches with a 20.5 x 16 inch image, from an edition of 100. The work merges Cyrus Dallin's sculpture "Appeal to the Great Spirit" (1908) and Mark Rothko's painting "Lilac and Orange over Ivory" (1953) in a playful challenge to two different branches of the Western art historical canon. Monkman links Rothko's modern abstract desire to explore the subconscious and undefinable to the Cree concept of mamahtawisiwin, which refers to a state of unknowingness, or a tapping into the great mystery. Monkman's alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle replaces Dallin's central figure, her shrug flipping a colonial ode to the "vanishing race" into an ironic question mark. The print is sold unframed.

Donated By Akron Art Museum