500 Year Itch, Shelley Niro

Artwork Overview

Shelley Niro, 500 Year Itch
Shelley Niro, 500 Year Itch
Shelley Niro
500 Year Itch
1992
Shelley Niro
Cultural affiliations: Mohawk
born 1954
500 Year Itch, 1992
Where object was made: Canada
Material/technique: gelatin silver print; hand coloring; drilling; mat board
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 55.9 x 91.4 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 22 1/2 x 36 0.9843 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 23 1/2 x 38 1/2 x 0 3/4 in
Weight (Weight): 7 lbs
Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2002.0110
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Bold Women
In 500 Year Itch, Shelley Niro considers how we perform identities that might intersect or change. The artist dresses as Marilyn Monroe in the film The Seven Year Itch (1955) on the left and as herself in everyday clothes on the right, with a picture of her mother in the center. The title refers to the 500 years following Columbus’s so-called discovery of America, conveying the lingering “itch” caused by the imposition of settler cultures on Indigenous peoples.
Power Clashing: Clothing, Collage, and Contemporary Identities
Mohawk artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro frequently uses clothing as a motif for exploring Native American representations and stereotypes. In her photographic triptych 500 Year Itch, Niro appears in two of the three full-length portraits. In the right panel, the artist wears nondescript clothing and a neutral expression. In the left panel, she appears in the guise of Marilyn Monroe, posed in a way that spoofs the actress’s famous skirt-billowing scene from the film The Seven Year Itch. These two “self-portraits” frame the central photograph of the artist’s mother, which was taken in the 1940s. The title of Niro’s work highlights a long legacy of Western cultural ideals, from Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492 to the blonde bombshell in contemporary popular culture. The inclusion of the artist’s body, as well as her mother’s, challenges dominant representations of beauty and femininity in mainstream American culture.
Power Clashing: Clothing, Collage, and Contemporary Identities
Mohawk artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro frequently uses clothing as a motif for exploring Native American representations and stereotypes. In her photographic triptych 500 Year Itch, Niro appears in two of the three full-length portraits. In the right panel, the artist wears nondescript clothing and a neutral expression. In the left panel, she appears in the guise of Marilyn Monroe, posed in a way that spoofs the actress’s famous skirt-billowing scene from the film The Seven Year Itch. These two “self-portraits” frame the central photograph of the artist’s mother, which was taken in the 1940s. The title of Niro’s work highlights a long legacy of Western cultural ideals, from Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492 to the blonde bombshell in contemporary popular culture. The inclusion of the artist’s body, as well as her mother’s, challenges dominant representations of beauty and femininity in mainstream American culture.
Exhibition Label: "American Indian Art at the Spencer Museum," 6-Sep-2003 to 19-Oct-2003, Andrea Norris This triptych depicts Niro herself dressed as Marilyn Monroe on the left, Niro’s mother as a young woman in the center, and Niro herself dressed in everyday clothes on the right. While mocking women’s attempts to be Marilyn, she also suggests the roles people perceived as outsiders feel forced to play in order to belong.

Exhibitions

Bold Women
Susan Earle, curator
2025
Brosseau Center for Learning: On Whiteness...
Kristan Hanson, curator
Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi, curator
2019
Power Clashing: Clothing, Collage, and Contemporary Identities
Samantha Lyons, curator
2017
Contemporary American Indian Art: The Spencer Collects
Andrea Norris, curator
2003

Citations

Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas. Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas REGISTER (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2005) 7, no. 4-7 (2006):