Gerald Clarke

Continuum Basket: Pivat (Tobacco), 2018, Palm Springs Art Museum

Gerald Clarke is a cowboy, UC Riverside Ethnic Studies professor, tribal leader, artist, and (his preferred identity) Indian. He works a cattle ranch in the Anza Valley, as his father, grandfather, and other Cahuilla tribal members have done since the Spanish Colonial period. Though Clarke is inspired by the history and beauty of the Cahuilla coiled basketry tradition, his eclectic art takes that heritage in many different directions, creating pop, conceptual, and politically engaged styles of art. His large, flat baskets, such as his Continuum series, are made of flattened beer and soda cans mounted on a satellite dish, an acknowledgment of the impact of alcoholism and diabetes on Native communities today. In another series, Flora, the abalone shells of traditional regalia decorate DVD discs—two oddly reminiscent iridescent materials. At LA’s Autry Museum of the American West, you’ll find a six-foot-diameter version Flora basket.

Clarke often riffs on the question of what qualifies as indigenous art. He jokes that when people see his work, they ask “where’s the Indian stuff?” In his view, it’s a matter of outlook on life more than of materials or forms. Clarke’s kind of indigenous art is contemporary, global, interdisciplinary, surprising, and witty. Through his work, he says, “I express my Cahuilla perspective as a 21st century citizen of the world and the passion, pain, and reverence I feel as a contemporary Cahuilla person.”

In the 1990s, Clarke began creating Road Signs to be displayed around the Cahuilla reservation—classic yellow signs emblazoned with words in the Cahuilla language: Nesun e' elquish (I am sad), Nextaxmuqa (I am singing), Kimul Hakushwe (The door is open), Ivawen (Be strong) to remind tribal members of their value to the world. Thirteen of the road signs have been installed in six Palm Springs city parks.

In 2002, Clarke took aim at art world (and Native authenticity) gatekeepers with To the Discriminating Collector, a branding iron that spells out Indian. Performance pieces such as Extreme Makeover and Antiques Roadshow further explored questions of Indigenous identity.

For Desert X in 2023, Clarke created Immersion, a large land sculpture that merged traditional Cahuilla basket weaving with an American board game. Walking the maze rewarded the player with new ways of viewing and understanding the landscape and local Indigenous history and culture.

Like a traditional Cahuilla basket weaver, Clarke scours his landscape to create his art. And he prefers materials that are easily accessible to viewers, too. “I always tell people my medium is kitchen sink. It's anything I can get my hands on, that I can manipulate or do something with that will teach me something new.” That’s my idea of a teacher—always learning.