The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
INDIGENOUS ART STANDS TALL
The moment you enter the new exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery, you realize the experience is going to be so much more than you first expect. Yes, the show is about objects and aesthetics, but more than that it is an invitation to explore aspects of the preservation of a way of life.
“Places, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art,” on display through June 21, gives new life to ancient cultures.
A blend of matter and spirit, you can’t help but marvel at all the tales that unfold in the beauty of the individual objects and the broad concepts of history and culture that inform them.
Curated by 2018 Yale graduates Katherine Nova McCleary (Little Shell ChippewaCree) and Leah
Tamar Shrestinian, with 2019 grad Joseph Zordan (Bad River Ojibwe), , this stunning exhibition features basketry, beadwork, drawings, photography, pottery, textiles and wood carvings from the 19th century to the present. Representing more than 40 indigenous nations and gathered from the collections of the gallery, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the exhibit marks a milestone in the display and interpretation of Indigenous art on Yale’s campus. There’s lots of information here. Divided into the four sections noted in the show’s title, the inclusions range from small exquisitely woven wooden baskets and embellished earthenware bowls crafted by 19th century artists that refer to their nations, to largescale textile wall hangings made of reclaimed wool blankets by contemporary Seneca artist Marie Watt, whose imagery of flying objects draws on Seneca beliefs about our contemporary environment as both thriving and vulnerable.
Narratives of everyday lives, of ongoing tradition, of ancestral stories, all grounded in a rich sense of the texture of life and its expression, resonate with a clear presence of past lives and human activity.
Many of the works speak to family connection.
An intricate cradle made of deerskin, glass beads, wood and brass, for example, from the late 19th century by the Artist Once Known (Lakota), likely was ed during her pregnancy and subsequently worn on her back. It reflects a mother’s desire to include her child as a constant part of her day.
Other pieces speak to connections between people and place, both to their homes and to the natural world, often reflecting reciprocal relationships with animals, plants and otherthanhuman forces.
A beautiful bandolier bag of beads, cotton and silk from the late 19th century, for example, by an Anishinaabe artist, is covered with a complex motif of fruit and flora and pays homage to the wearer’s specific connection to plant “relatives” with which they shared the land.
A contemporary piece by Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee), weaves together a historical settler map of Cherokee territory and a photograph of the Great Smoky Mountains, asking the viewer to contemplate the incompatibility between settler notions of land ownership and indigenous understanding of belonging to a place.
Some inclusions make reference to historical concerns, often interpreted as signs of Indigenous response and resistance to the U.S. government’s relocation from their territories in the 19th century.
A stunning vest of hide, porcupine quills, linen and velvet made of by a Dakota artist incorporates representations of the U.S. flag with Dakota flowers and butterflies. By incorporating this symbol of Colonial power and recontextualizing it, the artist points to Dakota peoples’ continued presence on, and resistance to, ownership of lands within the current borders of the U.S., as well as paying respect to Dakota veterans of U.S. wars.
Don’t miss this show. It is pleasing to the eye and meaningful to the heart, and while inspiring as a group, each object also possesses its own special place as a single work of art.