Placing Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Canada

Abstract

In 2003, the National Gallery of Canada opened its new galleries of Canadian and Aboriginal art. Through an analysis of the narrative of the display, this article explores the implications of the introduction of historical Aboriginal objects into the exhibition of Canadian art both for the evaluation of Aboriginal cultural production as art and for the construction of the discourse of Canadian art history. Although there are moments of rupture in the galleries’ narrative, the introduction of Aboriginal objects does little to question the aesthetic assumption of the art museum, which frames all works within its walls in terms of Western conceptions of artistic value.