Sonny Assu: A Selective History

by Sonny Assu, Candice Hopkins (Primary Contributor), Marianne Nicolson (Primary Contributor)

Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective spans over a decade of Assu's career, highlighting more than 120 full-color works, including several never-before-exhibited pieces.

Through analytical essays and personal narratives, Candice Hopkins, Marianne Nicolson, Richard Van Camp, and Ellyn Walker provide brilliant commentary on Assu's practice, its meaning in the context of contemporary art, and its wider significance in the struggle for Indigenous cultural and political autonomy. Exploring themes of Indigenous rights, consumerism, branding, humor, and the ways in which history informs contemporary ideas and identities, Sonny A Selective History is the first major full-scale book to pay tribute to this important, prolific, and vibrant figure in the contemporary art world.

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2017

About the author

Sonny Assu is an interdisciplinary artist whose diverse practice is informed by a deep connection to Kwakwaka’wakw art and culture and melded with western/pop principles of art making. His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery and into various public and private collections across Canada, the US, and the UK. He currently resides in unceded Ligwiłda’xw territory (Campbell River, BC).

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

His work takes contemporary ideas and applies them to traditional NW Coast Native art.