{"id":906302,"date":"2026-09-26T14:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T14:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906302\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T14:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T14:32:13","slug":"as-tariffs-hit-art-indigenous-artists-face-frustrating-roadblocks-and-a-sputtering-art-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/906302\/","title":{"rendered":"As tariffs hit art, Indigenous artists face frustrating roadblocks and a sputtering art market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Cree-M\u00e9tis artist Jason Baerg and their husband and collaborator, Antonio Rodriguez Garcia, pose in Baerg\u2019s Toronto studio on Sept. 23. Baerg said their income could be \u2018dramatically\u2019 reduced if they\u2019re unable to teach across the border because of the trade war.Joel Rodriguez\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Toronto-based M\u00e9tis artist Jason Baerg has studied in the United States, taught in the United States and sold artwork in the United States. Until President Donald Trump imposed 50-per-cent tariffs last month on made-in-Canada art crossing into the United States, modern-day borders had rarely been a professional imposition.<\/p>\n

But those tariffs have thrown the art market into chaos<\/a>, forcing artists, dealers, gallerists and shipping companies to rethink how they work as U.S. sales grind to a halt. For Indigenous artists such as Baerg, the tariffs add unnecessary and insulting complexity to the task of making a living through art.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really disconcerting, because we don\u2019t really recognize the federal borders between Canada and the United States, the colonial states of Turtle Island,\u201d said Baerg, a registered member of the M\u00e9tis Nation Saskatchewan. Their practice involves digital interventions in painting, drawing, installation, fashion and performance. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real rupture in the movement of who we are as people, of the exchange of our knowledges, of our opportunities to share and learn teachings, as well as the movement of our cultures through arts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Baerg stands beside a work in progress for an upcoming show at Fazakas Gallery in VancouverJoel Rodriguez\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Baerg said they were able to teach over the last decade at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico under the auspices of the Jay Treaty of 1794, which declared that Indigenous peoples and their personal goods were free to cross the U.S. border. The artist believes this should continue to apply during the current trade war, including to artworks. As it stands, their income could be \u201cdramatically\u201d reduced. <\/p>\n

The Jay Treaty is rife with complexities, however. It predates the existence of Canada and was signed by Great Britain. The Supreme Court of Canada decided 70 years ago<\/a> that it should not be enforced in the present-day country. <\/p>\n

To Baerg, that shouldn\u2019t matter. \u201cWe are all treaty people,\u201d they said. \u201cYou have to honour that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carver and sculptor James Hart of Haida Gwaii, also known as Chief 7IDANsuu, said the Jay Treaty has allowed him to visit neighbouring communities in Alaska from B.C. But he was unsure how it might now apply to carrying artworks across the border, given Trump\u2019s imposition of tariffs after years of free-flowing art between the two countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s terrible, actually, how it could be switched around,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cArtists have got to make a living. If we\u2019re getting held up because of that, it\u2019s pretty terrible.\u201d He said he recently got an order for a large sculpture from a buyer in California, but worries whether it\u2019ll be able to cross the border. \u201cIt was going to be my next payday for a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many artists from First Nations, M\u00e9tis and Inuit communities have been disproportionately affected by the trade war since Trump took office for the second time in 2025. The first blow came during an initial round<\/a> of cross-border art tariffs early last year. That was followed last August by the axing of the de minimis tariff exemption on shipments to the U.S. worth less than US$800.<\/p>\n

Liz Barron, Winnipeg-based M\u00e9tis director of the Indigenous Curatorial Collective, a non-profit that promotes Indigenous creative sovereignty, said that move had already harmed artists who sold works such as beaded earrings. With new 50-per-cent tariffs on top of duties, Barron said, a $200 pair of earrings could skyrocket in cost to $400 when crossing the border.<\/p>\n

Artists who don\u2019t have the assistance of a professional gallery to sell their work also face the administrative burden of navigating these changes. \u201cIt takes them away from creating work or selling other work,\u201d Barron said.<\/p>\n

The latest round of tariffs on products entering the U.S. also applies to fur products, bone, horns and other animal products that artists from some Indigenous communities often use in their work, such as carvings or mixed-media sculptures. If that kind of work crosses the border, would the artwork be tariffed, the components tariffed, or both? It\u2019s hard to find brokers willing to help figure that out, Barron said.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The pair work on a design from Baerg\u2019s ‘Rainbow, Luminosity and the Dream’ collection, presented at Indigenous New York Fashion Week.Joel Rodriguez\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Works made with animal products were already difficult to get across the border, said William Huffman, executive manager of West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, a studio with 125 artist members based in Kinngait, Nunavut. <\/p>\n

Work from the co-op can be found everywhere from airport souvenir shops to the Venice Biennale, though Huffman says its true niche is drawings and prints. The co-op pays its artists for their work upfront, and for many of them it\u2019s their sole source of income. About 25 per cent of that work has been sold into the U.S. in recent years. <\/p>\n

To make up for lost sales to the United States, \u201cwe would have to look at cultivating markets, or stimulating markets we\u2019ve already developed,\u201d Huffman said.<\/p>\n

That would likely mean going overseas \u2013 a more expensive proposition than shipping artwork south, but something artists, managers and gallerists across the country are contemplating. <\/p>\n

Losing the U.S. market also means losing both long-standing relationships and cultural exchanges that are important to Indigenous artists. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at this really great moment where Indigenous voices are getting some play,\u201d said LaTiesha Fazakas, owner and director of Fazakas Gallery in Vancouver, which focuses on contemporary Indigenous art. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada has been at the forefront of that,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

But she worries the cultural dialogue could slow down if Canadian works don\u2019t make it into the United States. Before Trump\u2019s re-election, 30 per cent of the art at Fazakas\u2019s gallery was sold to U.S. buyers. The number has fallen to \u201cvirtually zero,\u201d she said. \u201cThe upside is we have found that Canadians are buying Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artists she works with are doing okay for now, \u201cbut we\u2019d also like to prosper. We don\u2019t just want to hold on tight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Cree-M\u00e9tis artist Jason Baerg and their husband and collaborator, Antonio Rodriguez Garcia, pose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[21366,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,21369],"class_list":["post-906302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-appwebview","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-yesapplenews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}