Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
In his series America’s Finest, Vincent Valdez depicts figures of different ethnicities as boxers, poised and ready to enter the ring. In this particular work, Valdez represents a Native American boxer clad in a traditional war bonnet, whose name “Big Chief” is emblazoned upon his silk boxing shorts. However, the arrows that pierce his skin not only harken back to the violence of European colonization during the “discovery” of America, but also evoke imagery of Saint Sebastian who, according to Christian tradition, was persecuted for his beliefs and became a celebrated martyr. Saint Sebastian is said to have been shot full of arrows, yet miraculously survived. Valdez, by combining these two histories, suggests that Native Americans are martyrs akin to Saint Sebastian — a people whose enduring cultural presence cannot be eliminated by brute force. By filtering the past through the present, Valdez shows the way in which these histories continue to structure our world.