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Walter Phillips Gallery, Satellite Space

Kite, Everything I Say Is True, 2017. Commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre. Photo Rita Taylor

Everything I Say Is True
Kite
March 29 – May 10, 2017
Walter Phillips Gallery, Satellite Space
Eric Harvie, West Lobby



Opening Reception and Performance


Wednesday, March 29, 2017
4 p.m. Performance, Walter Phillips Gallery 


7-9 p.m. Opening Reception, Eric Harvie, West Lobby 



Everything I Say Is True is a solo exhibition and performance by Southern California-based, Oglala Lakota artist Kite, aka Suzanne Kite. In this newly commissioned body of work, Kite constructs a complex, non-linear narrative that draws on the history of Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, where her grandparents were born, as well as on other aspects of her family's history. This multiplicity of narrative is reflected in the use of a number of mediums, as well as in the inclusion of ephemera and historical documents belonging to the artist. These documents make reference to a multigenerational experience of adoption within Kite’s family, as well as to her subsequent experience of Oglala Lakota cultural heritage and world views. 


Although Everything I Say Is True reads as a definitive statement, the works within the exhibition position the concept of “truth” as a highly contested term. The references to historical events that occurred at Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s suggest the role of state power in the construction of dominant historical narratives; a reading that opens up the possibility that “truth” and “conspiracy” are, at times, interchangeable terms.[1]  The exhibition might also be understood as an invitation to consider how concepts of truth are defined according to Oglala Lakota knowledge systems. This refusal of a single perspective within the space of the exhibition prompts questions as to our own conception of the truth of the events in question, as well as on the singularity of narrative itself. 


[1] The concept of conspiracy is explored by Caroline M. Woidat in the text, "The Truth is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture," The Journal of American Culture 29, 4 (2006). 


Curator's Tours

Friday, March 31

1 p.m. 
Eric Harvie, West Lobby

Friday, April 21
1 p.m. 
Eric Harvie, West Lobby

Friday, May 5
1 p.m. 
Eric Harvie, West Lobby


Artist Biography

Suzanne Kite, aka Kite, is an Oglala Lakota performance artist, visual artist and composer from Southern California. Kite's work includes performance, sound, drawing, animations, movement, sound sculpture, text scores and video compositions. Recently, Kite has been developing a body interface for movement performances, carbon fiber sculptures, immersive video and sound installations and has co-founded the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records. Kite holds a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in music composition and is currently an MFA candidate in the Milton Avery Graduate School at Bard College.