Brian Jungen in "Vancouver" - Season 8 | Art21

[Brian Jungen]
I didn't grow up on the coast.

I really like being by the ocean. But I like to go
visit it and then go away again.

When I lived on the coast, I
was very influenced by the artwork of the First Nations

on the coast,
and I was interested in how something

very specific
like the coastal motifs and imagery

move to being something that was really
associated with the whole province

I had heard that the last killer whale I
was leaving the Vancouver Aquarium so I wanted to go film her then

and that's when I kind of stumbled
upon what used to be a big industry,

the whaling industry on the
west coast.

The imagery of the whale was pretty widespread
widespread across Maritime native cultures.

When I made the first one, all
that kind came together

working with those chairs I left enough
clues that people could tell what they were.

You can buy those chairs
anywhere,

and they're cheap.

Kind of switch that happens,
the spark, right,

that gets people interested.

♪ ♪

If you ask any Native Indian
person "Where are you from?"

they wouldn't really say the
city they happened to be living in.

They would say where their
blood relations are.

I'm Dane-zaa, so that is a
very specific part of the country.

But I moved to Vancouver when
I was 18 to go to art school,

and that was the first time I lived in a
city.

I love the opportunities and the culture

around you when you're in a city, but
I prefer to live out here.

It's nice to see all this sage
blooming, eh?

My childhood was spent on a
really large cattle ranch,

so when I was a little kid,

I would spend a lot of time out in the
forest with the dogs.

They were kind of like my
guardians.

Ed's a northern Alberta mutt.

He's the boss of this place in
some ways.

Like, we all listen to Ed.

So, yeah, that's across the
road there, those pastures are part of the property

and up there on the hillside and up there, too.

My ancestors were promised
they could

either live on reserve, or
they would be given land,

but none of it was honored.

♪ ♪

When I started working with
shoes in the nineties,

I went into Niketown.

They had sneakers of theirs in
glass vitrines,

and I thought that was so
strange.

I started to make connections between
the commodification of those shoes and

the same thing that's happened to Native art.

And then there was just kind
of a strange coincidence that the color

schemes and designs look very similar to
Northwest Coast masks

There was this kind of illicit
thrill I got by buying these Air Jordans and, like,

immediately starting to cut them up
and stuff.

So, yeah, and that was my
first kind of foray

into making objects.

[chains rattling]

- Tch, tch.

I'm a pretty quiet person.

I was kind of raised around cowboy culture, so
there's a lot of aggression

but it's not really how I approach the
world.

- That's right. Attaboy.

So I didn't have much access to culture
growing up in the north, so I had,

like one television station AM radio,
kind of thing.

My folks died when I was 7, so
I just kind

kind of like
buried myself in these--my imagination.

I used to make artwork because
I thought

I could hide behind it,

and that turned out not to be
the case.

My artwork became so tied up
with my identity, especially as Native Canadian,

that it was almost impossible to talk
about my artwork without my identity.

An uncle of mine showed me how
to make drums years ago, and I'm not a very good

musician, but whenever I'm home, like, my
cousins will kind of thrust a drum at me

to, like, participate, and it's great. I
love it,

but I wanted to make some of my own.

I've always also really liked modern
furniture.

So I kind of used those chairs
to make these drums,

give them a life other than a
utilitarian furniture, right?

Kind of give them a voice.

[strumming guitar]

Yeah, I--I like vehicles.

I have a nice Impala now.
It's my summer car really.

I cruise around in that.

♪ ♪

When I was an adolescent and
into my 20s,

I had to figure out who I was
and kind of come out of the closet,

but that's really not an issue anymore.
I think gay culture's kind of mainstream...

and I never really fit into that
stereotype anyways.

My family are hunters. it's very
common in Canada,

but a lot of my family have freezers to
keep moose meat in,

and a lot of the times, they're outside.

When I was visiting family, and I started
making these temporary sculptures and

sticking them on top of the freezers
because they were like the perfect

pedestal,

and I liked kind of seeing
that, like some people would just--they thought like

"Who put all this crap on here?" and other people, they would look at it and say,

"Oh, that's an
artwork, right?" So I decided to take that into the studio.

I like using things people can recognize
that they see around them every day.

[synth music]

[Sewing machine running]

This new series I just
started, it's gonna be shown in Vancouver in January.

I wanted to revisit the material it's
been about 10 years,

and I wanted to do it in a new way.

When I first made them, I was just kind
of slowly taking them apart piece by piece,

and now I just am much more
fluid with it.

- Oh, there are like kind of
horns.

[Saw whirring]

I work very intuitively.
We just tighten everything up
and then

start cutting see what happens.

I--I don't have an idea of what
it's gonna look

like in my head, so it will be
finished when it feels finished.

You know, I always say to myself,
"I'm not gonna work like this anymore,

and things are gonna be done
weeks ahead of the opening,"

but I guess a part of me still
likes the kind

of intensity of working down
to the wire.

- This will be attached?

Have you figured out how
that's gonna work?

- No.

- No, no.

- So...

Yeah.

- Well, and hope for the best.

[laughs]

[synth sounds]

I wanted to make these
ones more abstract.

I think when I made the first
ones I was

interested in referencing them to what
people thought native art is.

Now I've kind of moved away
from that.

And some of these just feel
like 20th century modern sculpture.

[strumming guitar]

I'm involved in a contemporary art
community that is very exclusive

♪ ♪

I don't know. There's all
different sorts of art worlds.

There's a whole Native
American art world.

♪ ♪

I kind of have a bit of a hand
in that.

♪ ♪

If I hadn't gone to art
school, if my parents hadn't died,

I probably would have wound up working on the family farm

and making art in secret.

♪ ♪

[soft electronic music]