James Luna

James Luna is know as "the most dangerous Indians alive" -  some of his subjects deal with ethnic identity and how people perceive us (indians) and how we (indians) perceive ourselves and he says "not everybody can talk about that, so I gees that makes me a dangerous character." I really got attracted to Luna's work because he uses himself as the subject matter. James Luna uses his body to critique the object of Native American cultures and cultural displays.  He dramatically calls attention to the exhibition of Native American peoples and Native American cultural object.

 I believe that he does this because he knows himself better than he knows anyone else. he sacrifices himself and therefore it becomes much more dynamic. He works and talks about something he knows because he has lived it as to something that he has read about. There are a lot of artist out there that do reflect their work on themselves, but its about something in history, something that they have read about and how they have had experiences about it. James looks at his work that relate to not only himself, but his family, tribe, comity and reservation that he grew up with. He tells a true story and I think that is what I was attracted to.

A piece that really interesting to me was a piece that shows how he dealt with ethnic identity and perception. Its called "The Artifact Piece"- it shows how he became an indian and lied in state as an exhibit along with his personal objects. With that, the piece his a nerve and spoke out loud i the Indian country. He took objects that represented the modern of the indian culture and which happened to be himself. He collected his memories such as: his degrees, divorce papers, photos, record albums, cassettes and college mementos. As I see it, he tells a story about a man (himself) who was in college, happened to be native and that was the twist, that was what left you wanting more. I liked that he wanted to show that we as humans are simply objects among bones and bones among objects.

Luna wanted his audience to walk around, look at installations and become part it and as i looked at his different work i did. I really felt like i understood, I got control of my imagination -  i was shocked at some, but then got an emotional sense on other pieces and i really believe that is the power in an installation. It's educational as though that is not his focus.