Native transformation
IAIA exhibit explores fusion of styles
In the 1960s and ’70s, Native artists fused tribal influences with 20th century art movements, planting the seeds of a revolutionary approach to Native art.
“Action Abstraction Redefined” showcases a rotating collection of more than 40 works by instructors and students at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The exhibition opens on Friday, July 28, at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and features works by luminaries such as Fritz Scholder (Mission/Luiseño), T.C. Cannon (Caddo/ Kiowa) and Kevin Red Star (Crow).
At the time, American Indian art was largely confined to the flat Santa Fe Indian School style promoted by Dorothy Dunn in the 1930s. But IAIA teachers exposed their students to contemporary art movements such as cubism, abstract expressionism and color field work. They encouraged these
young painters to experiment with cultural designs and techniques from their own heritage. The results flowed into an outpouring of creative expression that drew regional and national attention. Drips, splatters and accidental gestures formed compositions; others flowed into fields of pure color.
“Early instructors like Fritz Scholder and Lloyd Kiva New introduced our students to modern contemporary art movements like abstract expressionism and the color field work by Barnett Newman,” known for his canvases of hard-edged flat color, curator Manuela Well-Off-Man said.
These artists didn’t merely copy Jackson Pollock’s famous drip technique, but they made it their own by combining it with traditional Native motifs and geometric designs. In some instances, the borrowing and combining of styles worked both ways.
Hank Gobin’s “Northwest Design” (1966) blazes with Northwest Coast ovoid shapes by the Tulalip/Snohomish) artist.
“He definitely also looked at works by Adolf Gottlieb, the abstract expressionist who also experimented with Native American and Greek mythology,” Well-Off-Man said.
Mike Medicine Horse Zillious’ (Akimel O’odham/Cheyenne/Pawnee) 1974 drip painting features a tribute to Pollock with a four directions cross symbol. The artist titled the piece “The Day Jackson Pollock Became Christian” in a spirit of both humor and homage.
Scholder’s oil “New Mexico No. 1.” (1965) evokes both Navajo textiles and the horizontal bands of the New Mexico landscape.
Lloyd Kiva New divided his “Untitled” (1968) into a series of squares-withinsquares.
“It reminds me of Josef Albers’ ‘Homage to the Square,’” Well-OffMan said. Albers explored chromatic interactions of nested squares.
“At the time, the expectation was that Indian art would be a certain way,” she said. “I think artists never live in isolation.”