Are the Best Artists working in Canada Today, all First Nation? 

1. Terrance Houle, Blood (his recent indian wrestling ring series) http://terrancehouleart.com/ 
2. Faye HeavyShield , Blood, (the bead work)
3. Brian Jungen Dunne-Za and Swiss (has there been a work tied closer to the failures of geography than his plastic whale skeleton?) 
4. Kent Monkman Cree/Irish (more the paintings than the perfomances)
5. Skeena Reece Haida http://www.skeenareece.com/
6. Raymond Boisjoy the haunting, low tech, reworking of photographic history, in rez gashttp://catrionajeffries.com/artists/raymond-boisjoly/works/) 
7. Jackson 2Bears  Kanien'kehaka, http://jackson2bears.net/
8.  Shuvinai Ashoona, Inuit http://viewoncanadianart.com/2009/06/16/is-shuvinai-ashoona-canadas-hottest-artist/
9. Beau Dick Kwakwaka'wakwa (aside from being a major mask carver, his strong belief in working with younger and mroe innovative artstis)  http://www.justart.ca/beau-dick-photos.htm
10. Rebecca Belmore http://www.rebeccabelmore.com/bio.html (venice beinealle) (and we cannot ignore the recent history with her and musuems/galleries)
11. Annie Pootoogook Inuit (and we cannot ignore the explotation of her by galleriests)  
12. Corey Bulprit, Haida http://urbannativegirl.tumblr.com/post/29128378989/corey-bulpitt-and-larissa-healey-to-begin-new (That he makes haida murals in public spaces, reclaiming public land as aborginal, is really smart, and really important) 
13. Nicholas Galanin. Tginlit (http://galan.in/) In the radically reworked, vitally impt show on Hip Hop and First Nations Aesthetics at the Powerplant right now, his work merging breakbeats and traditional dance, recast the history of cross politioan in a matrice of competing signifers. 
14. Larissa Healey Haida, (works with Bulpit)
15. Zacharias Kunuk Inuit,  (Perhaps our best narrative film maker?)
16. David Garneu, Metis, one of Canada's smartest, most techincally proficent, great pure paintters, and really smart. 

Small list--forgetting novelists, poets, dancers, fashion designers, graphic designers, playwrights, craftspeople, film and video makers, etc. et al. 

Post 1970, does Canadian Art Exist w/o Aborginal Contrubitions--and if the answer is no, does this mean that we have to completely reconsider what that image and conception means--Think of Monkmen's porno odes among the romanticism of Cane, sail Coupland's canoe next to Jungen's Cetology, Think of the abstraction of Heaveyshield and then the abstraction of Bush, think of Haida work remade as Kitsch, then look at Reeves mask of Brando or Healey and Bulpit saying "whos streets our streets", try looking at another Richard Prince playing Marlboro Man after Garneua's Cowboys, Indians, and Metis?, Think of Weiland's middle class femminism, and then Belmore...

I don't want this to be a either or, but thinking about this--first nations creators have inserted, and by extension discredited the narratives of art history--a disruption that is needed, and joyous.