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Breakfast Series

Photo: Paul Macapia

Breakfast Series

2006

Sonny Assu (Gwa'gwa'da'ka)

Kwakwaka'wakw, Laich-kwil-tach, Wei Wai Kai, born 1975

Sonny Assu’s Breakfast Series appropriates the form of the familiar cereal box and emblazons its surfaces with commentary on highly-charged issues for First Nations people—such as the environment, treaty rights and land claims. The pop art-inspired graphics on the five boxes in the series contain recognizable imagery but upon closer inspection, we see that Tony the Tiger is composed of formline design elements, the box of Lucky Beads includes a free plot of land in every box, and contains “12 essential lies and deceptions.” The light-hearted presentation, upon further investigation, exposes serious social issues.
Five boxes digitally printed with Fome-cor
12 x 7 x 3 in. (30.5 x 17.8 x 7.6cm) each
Gift of Rebecca and Alexander Stewart, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum
2006.93
Provenance: Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, 2006; SAM purchase
Photo: Paul Macapia
location
Not currently on view

Media

For SAM's My Favorite Things series in 2018, Seattle-based artist and curator Davida Ingram highlights Sonny Assu's Breakfast Series.

Resources

Exhibition HistoryWichita, Kansas, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, January 19-April 14, 2013. Text by Emily Stamey. Catalog nos. 29-33, pp. 59-63, reproductions pp. 60-62 (color).

Scottsdale, Arizona, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, May 25-September 1, 2013

GrinnelL, Iowa, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, September 20-December 15, 2013

Laramie, Wyoming, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, March 15-June 1, 2014

Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines Art Center, World Histories, May 16, 2008 - August 24, 2008

Vancouver, British Columbia, Equinox Gallery, 2006
Published ReferencesMorain, Michael. A&E: New Grinnell College art exhibit has grocery theme, in Shreveport Times, September 12, 2013, accessed online at http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/D2/20130915/ENT/309150011/A-E-New-Grinnell-College-art-exhibit-has-grocery-theme?nclick_check=1

Stamey, Emily, Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, Wichita, Kansas: Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, 2013, pp. 59-62

Burkhalter, Laura and Jon Wenet, World Histories, Des Moines, Iowa: Des Moines Art Center, 2008, p. 35

Brotherton, Barbara, Native Art of the Northwest Coast, A Community of Collectors, Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 2008, p. 145, illus. 122

Ishikawa, Chiyo, ed., A Community of Collectors: 75th Anniversary Gifts to the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2007, illus. opposite contents page



Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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