"Anna Tsouhlarakis: Indigenous Absurdities" at MCA Denver allows humor

It is rare to walk into a contemporary art gallery these days and encounter the sort of direct humor offered up in the exhibition “Indigenous Absurdities,” currently at the MCA Denver. That is just not the age we are living in.

Instead, trauma is all the rage as curators endeavor to use their spaces as forums for exploring current social ills and for dissecting sins of the past. Galleries are not feel-good places as much as they are classrooms for difficult learning.

Most of us see this as a necessary reckoning, overdue and legitimate in most cases, and it is bound to continue for some time. But it is not much fun for the paying customers who go to see the shows. They endure the situation because they feel they ought to, sometimes because they want to understand and grow, and sometimes because they want to alleviate whatever feelings of guilt they might be carrying due to their own acquiescence to the enduring inequities of our world.

Whatever the reason, the aura of displeasure is so pervasive that the MCA goes to considerable lengths here to let viewers know they can actually laugh out loud at the objects created by Boulder-based artist Anna Tsouhlarakis.

In her short, opening statement, which greets viewers at the museum and sets the tone for their visit, curator Leilani Lynch employs the word “humor” five times and the word “joke” three times. In just three paragraphs, she also squeezes in “levity,” “playfully,” “amusing,” “ridiculous,” “snarky” and “sarcastic.”

That might seem like overkill but it is probably necessary to break the hard habit of taking things very seriously in visual art shows, in particular with recent, local exhibitions featuring Native American artists. Tsouhlarakis is Diné and Muscogee along with Greek.

That’s not to say Tsouhlarakis’ work is not serious. Her pieces — all made in the past year — are wry observations of contemporary Native American culture, based on her own experiences. They ring true universally and they cut deep when they have to.

But the body of work is more about exposing the ironies of what she labels present-day “Indian humor” than focusing on the past. Tsouhlarakis captures the self-deprecation, teasing, in-jokes and wry outlook she has seen in her family and friends.

“I think I’m funny,” she says in the audio component that exhibition visitors can access through QR codes posted on the walls. “I mean, I’m not like a comedian, but I think I try to find the funny parts of a situation. I enjoy making people laugh.”

Much of that comes down to her own situation, growing up “off-reservation” but also spending time on Indian lands interacting with family and friends. She was an outsider in some ways and took her share of ribbing. She describes that as a kind of love.

Many of the pieces in the show feel plucked from that experience. Several are text-based and have the aura of repeated comments or overheard snippets of conversation that she recreates in artful ways. Her works can play out like one-liner internet memes.

One example is the two-dimensional collage “Her Fry Bread Isn’t That Good.” Tsouhlarakis combines the actual words in that phrase — presenting them in bold, sans serif type — along with images borrowed from found sources, such as torn pages from magazines or photos, or printouts from social media.

Some of those capture the fat rolls on the human body, which happen to resemble the folds and curves that appear on traditional fry bread. The joke is a little obscure — is it a way of insulting someone’s cooking skills or their weight? It does not matter; the artist succeeds in amusing us.

Tsouhlarakis uses the same format for other phrases, in pieces titled “Her Braids Are Always Too Loose,” or “Who’s Got Her Kids Tonight?” Or “Her Beadwork Isn’t Vintage, It’s Just Old.” There is a range of sniping and clever cattiness on display, though it rises above stand-up comedy.

Other pieces in the show carry more gravitas, while still imbued with a sense of lightness. The exhibition’s signature piece, “She Must Be a Matriarch,” is a fiberglass, resin and plaster statue of a horse that stands maybe six feet tall. It is Tsouhlarakis’ response to a more famous statue, James Earle Fraser’s 1919 “End of the Trail,” a bronze that depicts a Native American warrior, slumped over on horseback with his spear pointed down, and evidently suffering from massive defeat.

Tsouhlarakis turns that on its head, adding to her version of the stallion the outstretched and muscular arms of women, which hover over its head and appear to be urging it defiantly forward. Fraser’s vision of a wounded soldier is transformed into a symbol of female resolve.

Other pieces take on the inner conflicts of Native American identity in a changing world.

“She Thinks She Is Too Good,” is another resin sculpture that juxtaposes elements meant to represent traditional, tribal life — a tipi-like structure, tobacco can lids, leather straps — against the trappings of college life, like beer kegs and books. The work explores the idea that some Native Americans might be considered “too good” for the reservation when they move on to other locales.

The work in “Indigenous Absurdities,” does not represent the entirety of Tsouhlarakis’ diverse artistic output; she has made a lot of different objects with a variety of both media and messages. Everything in this show is recent and it is, in some ways, a departure for her.

But it is a moment to savor, and curator Lynch captures it in spirit. The entire body of work is monochromatic, just black-and-white with few exceptions, and in that way it presents itself directly and minimally. Lynch keeps the display sharp, uncrowded and keenly edited.

She leaves space for visitors to experience the work leisurely and from all angles and to encounter Tsouhlarakis on a variety of levels. There are “a-ha” moments and “ha-ha” moments — a rare and welcome mix in this somber time in our culture.

“Anna Tsouhlarakis: Indigenous Absurdities” continues through Sept. 10 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 1485 Deglany St. Info: 303-298-7554 or mcadenver.org.

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