Unravelling the Historical Roots to the Present in Hessay’s Waiting at Wounded Knee

Abstract

Waiting at Wounded Knee (1974) by Canadian artist Carle Hessay (1911–78) illustrates how a work of art responding to a contemporary political crisis can reflect back to an earlier crisis and project meaningfully into the present. In 1973 Hessay was absorbed by the long impasse of the conflict at Wounded Knee in South Dakota between the Oglala dissidents of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (the “GOON squad”) who were supported by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations. The deadly standoff at Wounded Knee lasted 71 days, which explains the “Waiting” in Hessay’s title and elucidates the subject of the work and its evocative painting technique. The participants of the Wounded Knee Incident in 1973 re-enacted the Ghost Dance that had been performed at the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The intentional blurriness of Hessay’s painting illustrates the Ghost Dance while blurring the two periods together. But the story is not over. The painting can also be seen as emblematic of the “waiting” involved in navigating the constant uncertainties and threats to sovereignty in our contemporary moment.