The compositional strategy of Untitled, a 1955 work by Cherokee artist Edna Massey, is far more closely aligned with Abstract Expressionism—a mid-twentieth-century school of painting dominated by European American artists—than with traditionally abstract forms of Indigenous art, such as beadwork. Few viewers would infer from the stylistic attributes of Untitled that Massey was Indigenous. In this respect, the work typifies Indigenous painters’ forays into abstraction during the period. In contrast, the contemporary Caddo artist Chad “Nish” Earles assembles abstract compositions out of motifs common in the traditional ceramics and graphic art of his tribe. Thus in Earles’s work, abstraction has the effect of __________
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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Inferences
hardWhich choice most logically completes the text?
A
rendering Indigenous identity more legible than it is in Untitled.
B
asserting the Indigenous origins of motifs associated with Abstract Expressionism.
C
challenging the dominance of European American artists within Abstract Expressionism.
D
reconciling Indigenous and European American influences that coexist uneasily in Untitled.