See the artist collective Postcommodity at the 2017 Whitney Biennial
Postcommodity includes:
Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist and Raven Chacon
See Kade Twist’s solo work at David Richard Gallery
FEATURING BELOW: KADE L. TWIST
Twist’s solo artistic practice focuses on the diaspora of the Cherokee nation, mapping their migration across the US from their origins in the Carolinas through the Southern US, to Oklahoma and on to California. These migrations, caused by economic expansion and corporate development of their land, resulted in scarcity of resources that forced the Cherokee to move to new undeveloped regions so they could continue to live off the land and survive.
His multidisciplinary practice includes video, sound, immersive experiences and text pieces.
Installation View
Kade Twist
I Can Almost See the Ocean, 2016
Video, HD Video with sound, Edition 1/4
The video on the left is of deer grazing on land that Chevron is reclaiming as a nature reserve near in the San Joaquin Valley in California at the interface of agricultural and energy production. Chevron receives carbon credits for these efforts. The video on the right is on a hillside in Bakersfield looking over the Chevron refining plants with a faint distant view of the Pacific Ocean.
Still image of each video.
Installation View:
Kade Twist
Market Liberation, 2012
Video, HD Video with sound, Edition: 1/4
Videos from Oklahoma. The video on the left is a blank billboard and the one on the right is an abandoned Native American jewelry stand. The background noise is white noise.
Still image of each monitor.
Kade Twist
Of the Smiles We Left Behind, 2016
Video, HD Video with sound, Edition: 1/4
Video of a California condor on a cliff looking further west across the Pacific Ocean and the sound of the ocean. Where can the Cherokee migrate to next?
Still image of the monitor.
Kade Twist
Demand Aggregation, 2016
Video, HD Video with sound, Edition: 1/4
Price: $ 5,000.00 with equipment as presented
This artwork is a continuous scroll of a Twitter feed from Anglo American, one of the worlds largest mining companies.
Kade Twist
ᎠᎳᏏᏅᏙᏗ ᎤᏛᏏᏗᏒ (Cherokee Translation of the words "Economic Growth")
Aluminum panel, automobile paint, acrylic and polished aluminum text - 2016
17.5 x 70 " Edition of 4
Kade Twist
ᎠᏎᏊᎢ ᎤᏂᎾᏗᎤᏗ (Cherokee Translation of the words "Free Market")
Aluminum panel, automobile paint, acrylic and polished aluminum text - 2016
17.5 x 70 " Edition of 4
Kade Twist
ᎰᏩᎠᏰᎸᏗ ᎠᏚᏓᎸᏗ (Cherokee translation of the words "Trust Responsibility")
Wood panel, automobile paint, acrylic mirror text - 2009
12 x 30 “
Kade Twist
ᎤᏂᎾᏗᏅᏗ ᏗᏔᏲᏍᏗ (Cherokee translation of the words "Market Demand")
Wood panel, automobile paint, acrylic mirror text - 2009
12 x 30 “
Kade Twist
ᎠᏓᏜᏅᏓᏕᎲ (Cherokee translation for the word “Opportunity")
Aluminum panel, automobile paint, acrylic and polished aluminum text - 2016
17.5 x 40 " Edition of 4
Kade Twist
ᏕᏣᏄᎳ (Speed)
Aluminum panel, automobile paint, acrylic and polished aluminum text - 2016
17.5 x 32 " Edition of 4
Following are images of the installation that combines the videos, sound and text pieces. In the aggregate they convey a compelling narrative of the migration of the Cherokee nation across the US, from coast-to-coast as a result of economic development over the years and the resulting impact on their ability to live off the land.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Kade L. Twist investigates the unresolved tensions between market-driven systems, consumerism and indigenous self-determination. He utilizes his art practice (which includes video, sound, text, sculpture, installation, land and public policy) to promote generative discourses that challenge the social, political and economic processes that are destabilizing indigenous communities and geographies.
The artwork included in this exhibition (four video pieces with sound and six mixed-media text panels) all occupy the same space and collectively contribute to an immersive installation environment that reflects and investigates the cognitive landscape between the Cherokee communities in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, and the Cherokee communities in Bakersfield, California. Intentionally, these works function individually and collectively; as DNA and a metanarrative of indigenous migration driven by perceived economic opportunity. In this regard, the artwork raises fundamental questions regarding historic and contemporary relationships between indigenous migration and global market systems. Here, Twist references the Cherokee story of “Hunter” and “Buzzard” as cultural and conceptual frameworks for contextualizing contemporary experiences of indigenous migration, and indigenous efforts to mitigate the opportunity cost of resource scarcities, and its various impacts on family, community, land and culture. Since the days of Hunter, the artist contends, Cherokees have been wandering away from home in search of opportunity beyond the scarcities of the present.
The text panels, which employ the Cherokee syllabary, provide oversimplified Cherokee translations of ubiquitous English language economic terms -- Free Market, Market Demand, Economic Growth, Trust Responsibility, Opportunity, Speed. The words are translated independent of each other, without a defined relationship or context, which is always present in the Cherokee language. In this regard, the text panels reflect and critique the English speaking worldview through which market systems are articulated, in that they identify the lack of structural of relationships and accountability expressed through their symbolic and semiotic systems.
The videos position the land as a mediating force of both indigenous and Judeo Christian Western scientific worldviews. They document the irrational and seemingly unrelated byproducts of globalism as interconnected systems moving in-and-out of each other. All shots in the videos are facing west, and were produced with long lenses (400mm - 800mm) from great distances, taking full advantage of atmospheric noise and distortion, inviting the presence of the land, as a living breathing entity, into the camera. The accompanying sound -- each video piece has it’s own sound track -- underscores the interconnected quality of the artworks. Within the installation environment, the sound emanating from each of the video pieces -- comprised of field recordings and electronics -- form a cohesive composition that rises and falls and swirls around the room, like the ephemeral shadow of opportunity.
Select Press for Postcommodity at the 2017 Whitney Biennial:
Click here to go to the Phoenix New Times article
Click here to go to The New York Times article
Click here to go to Native Arts and Cultures article
Click here to go to Herberger Institute article
Click here to go to Whitney article
Click here to go to ArtNews article
Click here to go to ArtNet article