The Last Thanks
The Last Thanks, 2006, Archival pigment print, 24 x 36 inches
The Last Thanks, 2006
Archival pigment print, 24 x 36 inches
Edition of 15
In The Last Thanks, Wendy Red Star appears at the center of a long table, spread with a Thanksgiving meal of Oatmeal Creme Pies, bologna, canned green beans, Kraft Singles, Wonder Bread, and Natural American Spirit cigarettes. Flanking the artist are cartoonish plastic skeletons, all wearing feathered headdresses that mark them as stereotypically Native American. Red Star herself wears an elk tooth dress and gazes gloomily at a feathered fan held in her left hand. The title and composition of the image immediately recall Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, transforming the American holiday of Thanksgiving into a Native American last meal. In this way, the large-scale photographic print employs comic pastiche in service of an urgent com- mentary about the dispossession and genocide of Native peoples in the United States.
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Hope College Kruizenga Art Museum, Holland, MI
Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK
Travois, Kansas City, MO
University Galleries at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA