I just got finished reading the August issue of Out magazine. It’s their summer sports edition yet featured on the cover is non-gay hipster manqué Pete Wentz, he who knocked up Ashlee Simpson, created “Pop-Punk” for fourteen year old girls, opened a shitty bar in the East Village, and is a crappy designer of no doubt sweat shop produced graphic t-shirts and skinny jeans for bi-curious boys and girls. Evidently he’s a great role model for gay men!

Come on, it’s obvious why he’s on the cover: he’s a gay man’s wet dream. And after seeing his cock pics on the internet, he is now my wet dream, but more importantly Out magazine positioned him as a symbol for homo/hetero non sexual relations i.e. you don’t have to be gay to be a friend to the gays.

It is with this progressive notion in mind that NAICA opens it’s pages to non-Native artists who do not pretend to be Native nor look Native or in any way participate in Native contemporary or traditional culture. If the gays can reach out to the non-gays we can too. In this edition we spotlight two non-Native artists who have made work that craftily includes Indigenous themes:

Director Daniel Eduvijes Carrera has garnered many accolades for his masterful short film Primera Comuniòn. Carrera is not indigenous but his films feature indigenous Mexicans who negotiate the institutional confines of a not quite post-colonial world. He does so with an empathetic eye for the complexities of assimilation and integration exhibiting friendliness toward his subject that has not been seen since La Indian Maria went off the air.

Polyglot artist John Lurie is probably the most non-Indian artist we will ever feature in the magazine but probably the most loved by hipster Indians throughout North America, at least the ones who have seen Jarmusch’s films which up until the mid-90’s always featured some Lurie-ness. Anyway, what is not to love? He’s done everything you can possibly imagine an artist capable of doing. He’s created music for film and television; he’s been the leader of the jazz ensemble the Lounge Lizards for over thirty years; he’s acted in over thirty films; he’s a well-received painter and drawer who has exhibited his work in galleries and museums the world over; he was even the narrator of Animal Cops for Christ’s sake! If ever there was a good non-Native role model for Indian artists it’s this guy! Hell Out magazine should have put him on their cover instead of that beanie-eyed kid. Of course, he doesn’t have pictures of his penis floating around the internet, if he does; I haven’t found them, yet.

Like our gay magazine compatriots who also featured gay issues in their almost non-gay sports issue, we also feature actual Indigenous artists in this almost non-Indigenous edition. How could we not?

We look back through the years at the artists who were in residence and ask, “What are the up to now?” Renee Gick had a chat with Navajo director Melissa Henry, Rokan Verde toured through Western Spirit, Australian New Media Artist Jenny Fraser describes the annoyances with which Aboriginal artists have to deal within the constrictive Australian art world, and I decipher the abstract musical stylings of the Great Bear Chief himself, Val Kilmer and his music sessions with some non-Native guy named Mick Rossi. This truly is the “Friend o' the Indian” summer edition.

Enjoy!

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Mission:
NAICA: Native American Indigenous Cinema and Arts Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting contemporary Indigenous cinema and art the world over. Our mission is to present the work of established and emerging Indigenous artists in an innovative, new media environment that challenges, both critically and historically, the concept of Indigenous art in mainstream media. It is in this environment that NAICA aims to bridge cross-cultural communication, to educate the public at large, and to promote cultural evolution and the pursuit of high art.

NAICA, Inc 501c3 pending.