New Native perspectives at Millicent Rogers
Latest exhibit fosters connections with IAIA in Santa Fe
CONTEMPORARY ARTISTIC points of view rooted in the Native experience are part of an expanded vision at the Millicent Rogers in Taos where works by a variety of artists from the Institute of American Indian Arts is now on view.
The show, titled “New Mexico A-i-R: IAIA Artist Residents in Visual Dialogue,” opened on National Indigenous Peoples Day, Oct. 11. It features the work of 10 Native American artists based in New Mexico who have participated or are currently participating in the IAIA) Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) program.
The exhibit was curated by Dawning Pollen Shorty, an IAIA alumna of Taos Pueblo, Diné, and Lakota heritage, and Dr. Michelle Lanteri, MRM Curator of Collections and Exhibitions.
Entrenched stereotypes and staid opinions about conventional “Indian art” are confronted by the artists whose pathways push beyond what is expected to what is possible. Works take pointed looks at issues such as blood quantum, the little-talked-about prevalence of cancer among Native People, and the ways in which Native religion is misunderstood.
These and more are revealed in 25 different artworks rendered in a variety of media, including photography, paintings, clay, glass, stone, wearable artworks, and beadwork. No mere paintings under glass, the viewer will be brought to contemplate these new visions in pieces that are very often meticulously crafted, as in a series of sacred images made from hand-cut paper, an updated Mimbres-style bowl with designs made using photography, and a glass beaded burden strap created using a computer generated design of adrenocortical cancer titled “Digital DNA Beading by Erica Lord (Athabascanm, Inupiat).
In this collaboration between IAIA and the Museum, the exhibit, according to Lanteri, “considers the crosscultural and interspecies connections in the ways that this group of artists reflects relationships to home in their artworks. As the first installment of the Millicent Rogers Museum’s ‘New Mexico Artists’ series, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity for direct dialogue between the artists’ visual languages that communicate concepts about their identities and place-based exchanges.”
IAIA A-i-R program director Dr. Lara Evans (Cherokee Nation) and MRM’s Dr. Lanteri cultivated a partnership with this exhibit that is hoped to demonstrate an expansion of the museum’s mission to share and celebrate “the arts and cultures of the Southwest.”
Artists featured in the show include Heidi Brandow (Diné, Kanaka Maoli),
Orlando Dugi (Diné), Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo), Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Picuris Pueblo, Diné), Ian Kuali’i (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian, Shis Inday/ Mescalero Apache descent), Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/Choctaw), Erica Lord (Athabaskan, Inupiat, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese), Margarita Paz-Pedro (Laguna/Santa Clara Pueblos, MexicanAmerican), Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), and Adrian Wall (Jemez Pueblo).
In addition to the exhibit, the museum is also planning some live and