Pornoarchaeology of Kent Monkman’sGroup of Seven Inches

Abstract

Kent Monkman’s Group of Seven Inches: A Titillating Taxonomy of the Customs and Manners of the European Male reanimates early cinema and envisions a new history of diverse Indigenous sexuality. In order to foreground the complex array of media present in this video, I employ an interdisciplinary method of historical excavation and categorization. Monkman’s work consistently features lures, little clues that the recreation of an historical style is intended to be a critical engagement with the methods of historical knowledge. I refer to this lure as solicitation, and coin pornoarchaeology as my method of excavation through the histories of art and cinema. In this case study, I follow the lure and explore silent film, 1950s and 1960s beefcake, pulp fiction erotica, and 1970s gay pornographic films. I argue that this intertextual approach reconfigures the world that Monkman has built.

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