Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) is a 1992 mixed-media canvas by Salish artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a required Unit 10 work that uses collage, paint, and hanging commercial objects to critique the unequal 'trades' that cost Native peoples their land and identity.
Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) is a large mixed-media work made in 1992 by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. The date matters. 1992 was the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, and while much of the country was celebrating, Smith made this piece as a pointed non-celebration. Across the canvas she layers newspaper clippings, photographs of Native life, and drips of red, white, and yellow paint, with the outline of a canoe (a classic trade vessel) emerging through the collage.
The sharpest move sits above the canvas. A clothesline strung across the top holds cheap commercial objects that commodify Native identity, things like sports memorabilia with Native mascots and toy tomahawks. The title turns the whole arrangement into a bitter offer. If trade was supposedly fair, Smith says, then here are some 'gifts' in exchange for the land that was taken. It echoes the infamous story of Manhattan being 'sold' for beads and trinkets, exposing how lopsided those exchanges really were.
This is one of the required works in Topic 10.5, Unit 10 (Global Contemporary, 1980 CE to present). Unit 10 asks you to explain how contemporary artists use new materials, appropriation, and mixed media to comment on identity, politics, and the legacy of colonialism, and Trade checks every one of those boxes. Smith borrows the visual language of canonical American art (the drippy gestural paint recalls Abstract Expressionism, the attached objects recall Rauschenberg's combines) and turns it against the colonial history that same art world often ignored. That makes Trade one of the most efficient works you can know for any prompt about materials, message, and the postcolonial critique that runs through Unit 10.
Keep studying AP Art History Unit 10
Colonialism (Unit 10)
Trade is basically the AP Art History poster child for art about colonialism's legacy. The 2018 LEQ asked exactly for a work whose materials or imagery comment on colonialism, and Smith's hanging 'gifts' are imagery and material doing that work at the same time.
Cultural Appropriation (Unit 10)
The mascot caps and toy tomahawks on the clothesline are appropriation made physical. Smith displays mass-produced caricatures of Native identity to show how a culture got reduced to merchandise, which gives you concrete visual evidence for any appropriation argument.
Earth's Creation (Unit 10)
Emily Kame Kngwarreye's painting is the other major work by an Indigenous woman in Unit 10, but it works the opposite way. Earth's Creation expresses connection to ancestral Country through abstraction, while Trade confronts the viewer with explicit political critique. Comparing the two is a ready-made contrast essay.
En la Barbería no se Llora (Unit 10)
Pepón Osorio also piles up everyday commercial objects to interrogate identity and stereotype. Both works show the Unit 10 strategy of letting found objects carry cultural meaning instead of relying on paint alone.
Trade shows up in multiple-choice questions testing required-work identification (artist, date, medium, intended message) and in free-response prompts about contemporary art and identity. The 2018 LEQ asked for a work where the artist chose specific materials or imagery to comment on the legacy of colonialism, and Trade is a near-perfect answer. To score points, you need to go beyond 'it criticizes colonialism.' Name specific evidence, like the clothesline of mascot memorabilia, the 1992 Columbus quincentennial timing, the collaged newspaper clippings, or the canoe form, and connect each to Smith's argument that the 'trade' for Native land was a theft dressed up as an exchange. Full identification matters too, so memorize the title, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 1992, and mixed media on canvas.
Both are required Unit 10 works by Indigenous women artists, so they blur together fast under exam pressure. Earth's Creation is Emily Kame Kngwarreye's abstract painting rooted in Aboriginal Australian connection to Country, with no attached objects and no overt political text. Trade is Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's American mixed-media piece with collage and hanging commercial objects making a direct political critique of colonial land theft. One expresses cultural continuity through abstraction; the other confronts colonial history head-on.
Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People) was made by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a Salish artist, in 1992 to mark the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival as a protest rather than a celebration.
The work is mixed media, combining collaged newspaper clippings and photos, gestural paint, a canoe outline, and a clothesline of commercial objects like mascot memorabilia and toy tomahawks.
The title reframes those cheap objects as sarcastic 'gifts,' implying that if white settlers want Native land back in trade, these trinkets are all that was ever offered in return.
Smith deliberately echoes Abstract Expressionist drips and Rauschenberg-style attached objects, using the mainstream art canon's own techniques to deliver an anti-colonial message.
On the exam, this work is a go-to answer for prompts about contemporary artists using materials or imagery to comment on the legacy of colonialism, like the 2018 LEQ.
It is a 1992 mixed-media canvas by Salish artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, required for Unit 10. It layers collage, paint, a canoe outline, and a clothesline of commercial Native-themed objects to critique the colonial theft of Indigenous land.
1992 was the 500th anniversary of Columbus reaching the Americas. While the U.S. staged celebrations, Smith made Trade as a 'non-celebration' that forces viewers to confront 500 years of land loss and broken exchanges from a Native perspective.
It is mixed media, not just a painting, and that distinction can cost you identification points. Smith combines oil paint and collage on canvas with actual objects (mascot caps, toy tomahawks, and other memorabilia) hung on a clothesline above the canvas.
Both are Unit 10 works by Indigenous women, but Earth's Creation (Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Australia) is pure abstraction expressing connection to ancestral Country, while Trade (Smith, U.S.) attaches real commercial objects to deliver an explicit political critique of colonialism. Don't swap the artists or the messages.
The sports mascot memorabilia and toy tomahawks are mass-produced stereotypes of Native identity. Smith presents them as the sarcastic 'gifts' of the title, suggesting these trinkets are the insulting payment offered for stolen land, echoing the story of Manhattan sold for beads.