Honest talk: Modern Native art narratives
Iris McLister, Aug 29, 2014
When noted art historian Kenneth Clark (Civilisation) wrote that “painting and literature depend largely on unpredictable individuals,” he of course wasn’t talking about Native American artists: his influential book and series from the 1960s dealt almost exclusively with the art and architecture of the Western European Christian worlds and their non-indigenous North American aesthetic heirs. Clark’s observation, however, readily applies to past and present Native populations, whose art continues to be neatly categorized by others into such forms as weavings, pottery, and basketry — objects of ancient cultures that are suggestive of culturally and geographically isolated environments. Surely, though, no other American peoples have experienced the upheaval and diaspora, the essential unpredictability, of our Native populations. And with these challenges have come a hardy adaptability, though perhaps art viewers unaware of that can sometimes turn a mistakenly nostalgic eye toward some of our nation’s most uniquely unpredictable — and therefore innovative — creative cultures.
Modern Illusions in Native American Art, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it exhibit at Winterowd Fine Art through August, includes 11 Native artists with roots in the United States and Canada. As the gallery’s website explains, the participants, whose work ranges from paintings to sculpture to installations to pieces on paper, “were asked to mine the illusions of their culture, including icons, myths, dualities, mirages, and stories.” Curated by Zuni painter, sculptor, and muralist Silvester Hustito, the show is vigorous and varied — a miniature Indian Market, minus the Plaza crowds. Winterowd, now in its 10th year on Canyon Road, shows contemporary mainstream American painting and sculpture but has also exhibited local Native artists like Gregory Lomayesva and Frank Buffalo Hyde since its inception. Gallery owner Karla Winterowd emphasized that Indian Market “is a great time of year to draw attention to Native artists,” as well as a special chance “to offer visitors a unique window into a world we are fascinated by.” When asked how the sometimes pointedly political pieces in this show interact with those of non-Native artists represented at the gallery, Winterowd shrugged off any suggestion of visual or conceptual conflict, noting that “one of the exciting aspects of doing a group show like this is that it doesn’t have to relate to the work we show the rest of the year, which allows us to get outside the boundaries a little bit.”
“My whole family made art,” show curator Hustito told Pasatiempo. “My uncle Sullivan was known for his jewelry, which depicted the Peanuts character Snoopy. He actually wrote Charles M. Schulz in the ’90s to ask him for permission.” Hustito pointed out that the show’s title relates not only to outmoded preconceptions that Native art is all “paintings of headdresses and pottery,” but also speaks to the specific experience of a Native American upbringing. “The idea of illusion isn’t new to us because we’re told from a young age that we live in a mystical world where everything is alive, even the rocks. Growing up with this understanding instills a tremendous awareness and sense of wonder.”
A professor of printmaking at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, Jamison Chas Banks is a dual citizen of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation and Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma tribes. His work veers from conceptual to political, and his piece in the exhibit falls a bit in both categories. It’s a neatly folded fuzzy gray blanket, bordered in red and screen-printed with the Pontiac automobile logo. It was during a trip to Pittsburgh that Banks became interested in Fort Pitt, infamous for allegations of deliberate biological warfare against Native American populations at the hands of white soldiers. The work is multilayered: Pontiac, the name of an Ottawa Indian chief, of course refers also to the car manufacturer, which shut its doors in 2010. When questioned about his practice, Banks admits he’s “not really a gallery artist. I want this piece to be thought of as a relic, like something you’d find in a museum.” For Banks, the first step in addressing the future of Native arts is to talk about the past. “Of course we need healing,” he said, “but first we need to be able to honestly talk about what happened.”
Chicago-based artist Chris Pappan told Pasatiempo, “I think it’s really interesting to portray people who were alive during the time ledger art was beginning, sort of as a holistic approach. Our ancestors faced challenges and sacrifices for us to be here today, so we need to remember them and live our lives in a way that means their choices weren’t in vain.” Paintings and drawings made on ledger paper first appeared among Plains Indian tribes in the late 19th century. Strongly narrative and starkly, almost cartoonishly, figurative, they fill the pages of leather-bound record books. The book format afforded nomadic Indian tribes unprecedented portability, trading their traditional large-scale depictions of battles, hunts, and everyday life on animal hides for smaller-scale, delicately rendered compositions. Ranging from tender scenes of domesticity to graphic depictions of warfare, ledger drawings and paintings straddled historical and modern styles from their first appearance: it’s no wonder they continue to inspire artists today. Pappan (Kaw, Osage, and Cheyenne River Sioux) uses antique ledger paper as the foundation for meticulously drawn figures that combine traditional symbolism with abstracted pictorial elements. In Red Owl’s Sacrifice, old ledger paper (the upper right portion reads “State of Montana” and gives the year 1912) serves as the backdrop for a Native chief, whose expressive face is split into three separate images. Feathers sprouting from the top of his head appear in triplicate, and his tightly plaited braids fan out across his chest. The left portion of the paper features four black handprints, arranged one on top of another, and the right side bears numerical tabulations, interrupted by stripes of white, navy, red, and yellow. “I employ distorted imagery of Native peoples because people have distorted views of us,” explained Pappan, “and I also repeat imagery to explore the concept of people or ideas coming together to create something new, ethnically or ideologically.”
Jeff Kahm’s color-heavy geometric acrylic-on-paper pieces borrow from Native textiles as much as they do from Color Field painters like Kenneth Noland and Gene Davis. Layered triangles of hot pink, lime, and royal blue feel exhilaratingly modern, but cleaner and bolder than their 1950s predecessors. Originally from Canada, Kahm (Plains Cree) grew up on the Little Pine Reservation in Saskatchewan and currently teaches studio arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts. From a series of modestly sized acrylic-on-paper pieces, Converse III is all zigzags and contrast, like a snippet of a psychedelic rug. Kahm’s interest in art history is “a crucial component to my research of nonobjective art — which includes recognizing parallels and similarities between indigenous abstraction and the modern art aesthetic.” For Kahm, his seemingly novel contortions of blazing colors and strict angles have ancient precursors: “[I’m incorporating] symbolic motifs that have been used by indigenous artists for years.”
Painter Marla Allison is from Laguna Pueblo, located about 45 miles west of Albuquerque. Taken from her Animal Within series, the work in this show combines feminine and animal elements. In The Mountain Lion, a nude woman rendered in blues and browns bends at the waist to step out of a giant jungle cat. To be clear, she isn’t removing a cloak or a fur, but rather an entire animal — claws, paws, piercing green eyes, and all. Allison remarked, “Where I’m from, it’s normal to be humble and mild-mannered. I had to dig deep for the courage to paint this series. I would think that any woman from a traditional Pueblo upbringing would have to, because it’s a lot to show an audience of unknown eyes.” Her goal as an artist? “To share with art fans that Laguna people have so much to show the world.”
Portland-based artist Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke) works in a variety of mediums, often casting herself in starring compositional roles. Of the genre-defying work included in this exhibition, the artist said, “I was researching the term ‘squaw’ and happened upon a book series called White Squaw, which was made in the 1980s.” Red Star ended up buying all of the series’ 24 pulp novels, which revolve around sexualized, heavily stereotyped Native women. The cheesy cover art for the books is predictably terrible: dusty gunfights, lusty rolls in the dirt, and a suspiciously Anglo-looking “squaw” in a feathered headband. Red Star kept everything on the cover of the book except for the face of the woman, which she swapped out for her own image. One of six titles on view, Hot-Handed Heathen, pictures a red-lipped Red Star with her right index finger resting on the tip of her tongue, her eyes saucily locked on ours. “On the original covers, the main character’s expression is pretty much the same,” Red Star told Pasatiempo. “I chose to be more animated and play to the titles and subtexts.” Her use of the show’s theme is straightforward: “I changed something that’s degrading toward Native women and Native culture into something ridiculous … so that there is no power in the words or imagery.”
A handprint, a smudge, a stripe, a cross: symbols of the ancient past, certainly, but also elements that continue to inform and catalyze Native American art. When viewing the art in Modern Illusions, it’s easy to look for recognizable motifs — but far more challenging and ultimately rewarding to coax out new patterns and ways of seeing. Kenneth Clark once insisted that “there are some things in life so serious that only a poet can tell the truth about them.” Let’s listen mindfully to North America’s Native artists, whose poetry rings with marvelously innovative verse, spoken in a cadence both ancient and unpredictable. ◀
details
▼ Modern Illusions in Native American Art
▼ Exhibit through August
▼ Winterowd Fine Art, 701 Canyon Road, 505-992-8878
