Contemporary Native American art
Contemporary Native American art is a diverse and evolving field that reflects the unique histories, cultures, and perspectives of American Indian artists. Emerging prominently in the mid-1960s alongside the Civil Rights movement and the founding of the Institute of American Indian Arts, this genre emphasizes the individuality of artists who draw inspiration from both traditional Indigenous practices and contemporary themes. Artists like Fritz Scholder and T.C. Cannon paved the way for a new approach to representation, allowing for varied interpretations and expressions of Native identity.
In the twenty-first century, artists engage with complex themes such as the loss of ancestral lands, environmental destruction, and cultural objectification, often using their work as a means of political and social commentary. This art form encompasses a wide range of styles and materials, with artists like Marie Watt and Jeffrey Gibson blending traditional techniques with modern artistic practices. Many artists address their multifaceted identities, interweaving elements from different cultures into their work, while others continue to uphold traditional forms and narratives. Overall, contemporary Native American art serves as a vital platform for exploring and expressing the rich tapestry of Indigenous experiences and insights in today's world.
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Contemporary Native American art
SIGNIFICANCE: Drawing both on antiquity and on the present, American Indian artists depict their history, legends, insights, and sorrows
TRIBES AFFECTED: Pantribal
Contemporary American Indian art was spawned by the mid-1960’s Civil Rights movement and the 1962 founding of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the late 1960s, the innovative work of Fritz Scholder (Luiseño) and his student T. C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo) had alerted other American Indian artists to new ways of depicting the world. In the twenty-first century, American Indian artists balance the traditional and the contemporary, seeing these times as aspects of merging and intersecting cycles.
Individuality
In the new atmosphere created by the Civil Rights movement and its aftermath, artists began feeling free to pursue their own views and concerns rather than having their lives and traditions expressed, often stereotypically, by others. They do this in many different ways. There is no singular position from which to examine American Indian art and artists, no distinctive style, materials, or outlook. In the twenty-first century, American Indians belong to or are descended from hundreds of unique peoples, each with their own culture, language, and history. It can never be assumed that all have a similar history or see themselves unilaterally in relation to European Americans or other American Indians.
Many speak through their art to their individuality, which may be woven from a number of different cultures. In Kaaswoot (1982), a self-portrait, Edna Jackson reflects both her Tlingit and European ancestry. Some artists draw on traditions other than their own. Sylvia Lark (Seneca) was attracted to the arts of Asia. Lark’s fellow Seneca, Peter Jemison, on the other hand, continued the Northeast tradition of artful containers by placing his self-portrait on a paper bag (Aotearoa/ Ganondagan, 1986). Those who redefined the old ways, like Jemison, generally attracted more critical attention than those who follow the old ways. Thus, Florence Riggs (Navajo), who wove the life around her—a circus, a trading post—was distinguished from those who reproduce traditional patterns. Political and social statements are often conveyed through these modern interpretations. Many artists, however, did continue the traditional arts and ideas of their culture and gender; women, for example, continued to weave or sculpt with clay, sometimes drawing on ancient forms and styles. Subscribing to another position are those who define themselves as American rather than American Indian, and who may believe that cultural identity has no place in the definition of their art.
Shared Concerns
While American Indian art can never be funneled into a single definition, many of these artists do share a sense of community resulting in part from a common history. American Indians are sensitized to the past and present manipulation of their land, peoples, religion, culture, and social position at the hands of the politically and economically dominant. As the only group in America who live on and visit their ancestral lands, American Indians are particularly responsive in their work to the loss of their lands and the destruction of the environment. Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne/Arapaho) in Native Hosts (1988) put up aluminum signs in New York parks with messages such as NEW YORK TODAY YOUR HOST IS SHINNECOCK to indicate to today’s residents whose land they occupy. Part of the text is written backward to force the viewers to face the past. Jean La Marr (Paiute/Pit River) in They’re Going to Dump It Where? (1984) shows, reflected in the eyeglasses of a Paiute woman, the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility being struck by lightning—a statement against the destruction of sacred sites for the fostering of European American technology. At the same time, some American Indian artists continue, in both traditional and contemporary styles, to acknowledge the land as sacred, intertwined with culture and religion.
Since the earliest days of European conquest, there has been a tendency by European Americans to objectify all American Indians, assuming similarities across social class, education, personal taste, degree of assimilation, and dozens of other factors. The cultures of the Iroquois, Sioux, Hopi, and others have been compressed, standardized, and packaged. Addressing this objectification in The Good Doctor’s Bedside (1983), Lance Belanger (Maliseet) documents the stitchwork of a physician who closed the operation scar of a native woman with beads. Jimmie Durham (Cherokee), in his installation On Loan from the Museum of the American Indian (1986), speaks to the dominant view that anything Indian is worth collecting and displaying; the piece includes “Pocahontas Underwear,” which is decorated with feathers, beads, and pottery shards labeled “Scientifacts” and “Real Indian Blood.” James Luna (Diegueño/Luiseño) in 1986 took the ultimate step in illustrating this objectification when he put himself on display, with the appropriate labels, as an American Indian artifact (The Artifact Piece). Some artists with wry humor turn the tables. T. C. Cannon’s The Collector (or Osage with Van Gogh) shows an elder in traditional dress sitting in his comfortable Western living room with his European American possession, a Van Gogh painting.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Cree/Flathead/Shoshone) powerfully addresses past maltreatment of her people in Paper Dolls for a Post-Columbian World with Ensembles Contributed by U.S. Government (1991), in which sets of dolls’ clothes are labeled “Special Outfit for Trading Land with the U.S. Government for Whiskey with Gunpowder in It” and “Matching Smallpox Suits for All Indian Families After U.S. Government Sent Wagon Loads of Smallpox Infected Blankets to Keep Our Families Warm.” Other artists address the present conditions of American Indians. Richard Ray Whitman (Yuchi/Pawnee) presents the plight of the urban homeless in a set of photographs entitled Street Chiefs Series, 1988. Ron Nogonosh (Ojibwa), on his Shield for a Modern Warrior or Concession to Beads and Feathers in Indian Art (1984-1985), makes reference to Plains art and Dada sculpture; but most poignantly, the crushed beer cans in the center speak to the past and ongoing tragedy of alcoholism among native peoples.
Most contemporary American Indian artists, whether they live in a city, on an American Indian reservation, or both, speak from two worlds. In works that call on antiquity and the present, they depict their history and their legends, their insights and their sorrows. Influential artists in the twenty-first century include Marie Watt (Seneca), who creates community art with sewing circles; Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), a multi-medium artist and musician who shot to the forefront of contemporary Native American art in 2021 when he displayed Never Forget, a forty-five-foot tall sign spelling "INDIAN LAND" reminiscent of the Hollywood sign, at the Desert X art exhibition in Coachella Valley, California; and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient Jeffrey Gibson (Choctaw/Cherokee), who mixes painting and sculpture with traditional Indigenous handcraft techniques, including basket weaving, glass beading, and porcupine quill work.
Bibliography
Brody, J. J. Indian Painters and White Patrons. University of New Mexico Press, 1971.
Contemporary Native American Art. Gardiner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, 1983.
Hammond, Harmony, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, curators. Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar, and Sage. Gallery of the American Indian Community House, 1985.
"IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA)." Institute of American Indian Arts, 2024, iaia.edu/mocna/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2024.
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Scott, Chadd. "A Revolution In Contemporary Native American Art Explored At The Hessel Museum Of Art At Bard College." Forbes, 17 Sept. 2023, www.forbes.com/sites/chaddscott/2023/09/17/a-revolution-in-contemporary-native-american-art-explored-at-the-hessel-museum-of-art-at-bard-college/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2024.