From moccasins to Louboutins: an evolution of indigenous art
Patsy Phillips still occasionally gets visitors looking for 鈥渂eads and feathers and baskets鈥� at the听Museum of Contemporary Native Arts听in Santa Fe, New Mexico.听
But, increasingly, she finds herself welcoming art lovers who don鈥檛 settle for cliche. They embrace work in paint, clay, textiles, and video that draws from personal, cultural, and historical roots. This new Native American art expresses individualism in the face of racism, poverty, and a sense that other voices have too long told the world what living American Indian art should be.听
鈥淐ontemporary Native artists are doing exceptional work. They have been doing it. And now they鈥檙e getting recognition,鈥� says Ms. Phillips, the museum's director.
Why We Wrote This
American Indian art encompasses more than dream catchers, totem poles, and basketry. The art world is waking up to a new appreciation for contemporary Native art 鈥� and the artists behind it.
Long considered anthropological artifacts from a past era, American Indian art may finally be getting its due. The recognition comes in the form of major solo shows, ambitious surveys, and opportunities for Native artists to create and speak for themselves on the world stage. There鈥檚 been a shift in how Native art is presented and perceived 鈥� as art rather than artifact, with recognition for the individual artist 鈥� that suggests a greater appreciation for the culture and people behind the art, say observers in the art world.听
The growing prominence of Native contemporary art is due in part to opportunities Native curators have had to tell their own stories at places such as the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened on the National Mall in 2004, says Phillips, who is Cherokee. She also credits Nancy Mithlo, a Chiricahua Apache anthropologist, for organizing the first exhibition of contemporary Native American art curated by a Native American at the Venice Biennale, one of the world鈥檚 most prestigious international cultural festivals. That 1999 exhibition helped introduce Native American artists to international audiences who were free of preconceptions, says Phillips.听听
Indigenous art across the nation
A new appreciation for American Indian art has brought into focus the contributions of women, a creative force in Native art. 鈥淗earts of Our People,鈥� an exhibit of the work of Native women artists from early practitioners to contemporary creatives opens next June at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and later travels to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tenn.; the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; and the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Okla.听
The 115 objects in the exhibit are assembled from the Minneapolis Institute of Art鈥檚 permanent collection and from more than 30 other institutions and private collections. They range from an 18th century caribou hide hunting coat to a new textile piece commissioned for the show from Navajo master weaver DY Begay.
鈥淭he voices of these women are coming through,鈥� says Teri Greeves, an award-winning Kiowa Indian beadwork artist, who collaborated as a curator on the exhibit.听
Native American artists are also being celebrated at solo shows, exhibitions that spotlight the work of one artist. Oklahoma-based sculptor Holly Wilson has a solo show through January at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts which is part of Santa Fe's Institute of American Indian Arts. The exhibit is at once haunting and striking, featuring attenuated bronze sculpture against a stark white backdrop. Her pieces have Giacometti limbs and poignant faces that seem on the verge of speech, of telling a story. Ms. Wilson, who is Delaware and Cherokee, notes that Santa Fe draws art lovers from all over the world who appreciate her small, wraithlike figures that touch on big themes 鈥� innocence, tolerance, resilience.听
Men and women, children and adults from different nations and ethnicities are all able to connect with the art, Wilson says.
鈥淭here was no line that you couldn鈥檛 cross to get to the work,鈥� she says.
鈥楾he living artist鈥櫶�
At the Denver Art Museum (DAM) the focus is also on the artist. Rather than treat Native art as historical artifacts of a dead civilization, the museum has, since the 1920s, 鈥減ut an emphasis on the living artist,鈥� says John Lukavic, DAM鈥檚 curator of Native arts.听听
Mr. Lukavic and late chief curator Nancy Blomberg, an ardent champion of American Indian art, started a residency program for Native artists in 2012听to give them the space, time, and 鈥渞esources to push their practice,鈥� Lukavic says.听听
One such artist is Jeffrey Gibson, a Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee painter and sculptor who used his DAM residency to explore the museum鈥檚 collection of American Indian art and his own evolving interest in video. Mr. Gibson layers pigment, fabric, beads, the jingles that adorn powwow regalia, and even music into intricate art on punching bags, canvases, and sculpture.
Gibson鈥檚 first major exhibition debuted at the DAM in May. The show is currently at the Mississippi Museum of Art until听Jan. 21, then travels to the Seattle Art Museum and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wis.
鈥淚 feel like I鈥檓 definitely being acknowledged and heard by people who I don鈥檛 think were aware of me before,鈥� Gibson says.听听
He says he鈥檚 been told calling himself a Native American artist 鈥渏ust seems so limiting.鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檚 exactly why I identify as a Native American artist. It鈥檚 important for people鈥檚 expectations to be expanded,鈥� says Gibson. 鈥淚n the future we might be leaving an art world in which young Native Americans might feel comfortable.鈥�
