Garth Greenan Season Booklet 2017-2018

March 8–11, 2018
The Independent, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith:
I See Red
For the 2018 edition of The Independent, New York, the gallery will present I See
Red, a solo exhibition of works by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. The three paintings
in the exhibition provide an overview of the artist’s work between 1989 and 1993,
an important period in the artist’s practice. During that time, Smith began her
famous series “I See Red,” further extending and elaborating her assertion of red
as a signature of Native American identity. The saturated red of paintings such as
Gifts of Red Cloth (1989) and The Red Mean (1992) performs simultaneous acts of
affirmation and resistance, as in her earlier self-portraits.
In a manner similar to the one that she uses in The Red Mean, Smith deploys
a complex mix of image and text across the canvas of I See Red: Snowman. In sharp
contrast to the painted red ground, the center portion of the snowman is collaged
with black and white commercial text and advertising images. The words “simply
red” are applied over the painted surface where we expect to see a smiling mouth
of stones. The surrounding phrases “Bitter Medicine” and “Seeking Respect”
complicate and refute the possibility of “simply red,” as the artist transforms the
statements into difficult questions. By altering the characteristics from snow white
to red, Smith reframes the context of the casual use of banal mass media labels
and exposes the contingent subject position of the viewer from one who labels to
one who is labeled. The artist visualizes the effect of unequal power and prejudice
as she asserts the role of a Native American viewer bombarded by the incessant
appropriation and misuse of indigenous imagery for commercial profit. By reframing
a dominant cultural metaphor—white innocence—Smith’s “I See Red” series
activates a specific aesthetic and political critique within the larger discourse of
race that might otherwise go unquestioned.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Target, 1992