9 more exhibitions you won't want to miss

Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache, 1914-1994), My Cat, 1979, marble, 26½ x 14 x 10”. Collection Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ. Gift of Mrs. Scott Libby Jr.

1

October 30, 2021-October 2, 2022
Apache Stories
Desert Caballeros Western Museum
Wickenburg, AZ
www.westernmuseum.org

Apache Stories examines the continuing traditions in Apache art and culture. It specifically dispels false myths, some caused by film and television, that have lingered for decades. Artists represented in the show include Allan Houser, Bob Haozous, Kristal Williams and many others. The exhibition opens with performances by Apache Crown Dancers, hoop dancer Tony Duncan and other activities.

2

October 9, 2021-March 27, 2022
Poetic Justice: Judith F. Baca, Mildred Howard, and Jaune Quick-to See-Smith
New Mexico Museum of Art
Santa Fe, NM
www.nmartmuseum.org

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (Citizen of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), Indian Head Nickel, 1994, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 72”. Heard Museum Collection, Gift of Lynne and Albion Fenderson, Catalog #4611-1. © Courtesy of the artist and the Garth Greenan Gallery. Heard Museum Collection. Photograph by Craig Smith.

Opening this month, Poetic Justice celebrates the work of three innovative artists: Judith F. Baca, Mildred Howard and Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith. The exhibition will include painting, installations, film and monuments as the artists shed light on issues related to community, including land use, the environment, housing, civil rights, police brutality and immigration policy. “By addressing equity, social priorities, and their impact on communities,” the museum notes, “these accomplished visual artists and teachers engage with issues that are both local and global.”

3

Through January 23, 2022

Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
Santa Fe, NM, iaia.edu/mocna

Will Wilson (Diné), Mexican Hat Disposal Cell, Navajo Nation (Connecting the Dots series), 2020, drone-based digital photograph, triptych, 44 x 110”. Collection of the artist.

This unique exhibition documents Indigenous artists’ responses to the impacts of nuclear testing, nuclear accidents and uranium mining on Native Peoples and the environment. The traveling exhibition, which includes a catalog, gives artists a voice to address the long-term effects of these man-made disasters on Indigenous communities in the United States and around the world. Indigenous artists from Australia, Canada, Greenland, Japan, Pacific Islands and the United States utilize local and tribal knowledge, as well as Indigenous and contemporary art forms as visual strategies for their thought-provoking artworks.

4

Through February 26, 2023
Nampeyo and the Sikyátki Revival

de Young Museum
San Francisco, CA
deyoung.famsf.org

Installation view of Nampeyo and the Sikyátki Revival.

The de Young Museum in San Francisco will celebrate the artistic ingenuity of Tewa-Hopi potter Nampeyo with an installation of 32 pots from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. During her lifetime, Nampeyo (ca. 1860-1942) was, and remains today, perhaps the most renowned potter from the American Southwest. The single-gallery exhibition highlights Nampeyo’s work juxtaposed with examples of Hopi pottery from her time. Exquisite ceramics made by ancestral Hopi artists demonstrate Nampeyo’s sources of inspiration, and artworks by four generations of her descendants attest to the master potter’s enduring legacy.

5

Through December 2021
Collecting Jewelry: Curator H.P. Mera’s Trip to Navajo Country in 1932
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Santa Fe, NM
www.indianartsandculture.org

Silver and turquoise bracelet from Collecting Jewelry: Curator H.P. Mera’s Trip to Navajo Country in 1932.

This exhibition consists of jewelry pieces collected by Dr. Harry P. Mera during a trip to the Navajo Nation in 1932. Funded primarily by John D. Rockefeller, Mera visited 80 trading posts and covered more than 2,500 miles to gather a collection of jewelry. Collecting Jewelry will also explore the relationship of the Navajo people and the trading posts.

6

Through March 2022
Pop Chalee: Yippee Ki Yay
Millicent Rogers Museum
Taos, NM
www.millicentrogers.org

Pop Chalee (Taos), circa 1944. Image courtesy of Jack Hopkins.

The Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico, will honor Taos artist Pop Chalee with an exhibition to commemorate her induction into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Known for her glimmering paintings of forest scenes that inspired Walt Disney’s animation, Chalee was known as an outstanding horseback rider, as well as artist. The exhibition tells the story of her career through a selection of paintings, including murals, from both the museum and personal collections.

7

Through January 30, 2023
Fashioning America: Grit to Glamour
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, AR
www.crystalbridges.org

Teri Greeves (Kiowa), Abstraction: Kiowa by Design, 2014, beads on canvas high-heeled sneakers, 11½ x 10 x 4” each. Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photo: Stephen Lang.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will examine fashion around the country—from “cowboy boots. Bathing suits. Sneakers. Hollywood gowns. Denim jeans. Zoot suits.” Fashioning America is Crystal Bridges’ first exhibition dedicated to fashion and the first to present American fashion as a powerful emblem of global visual culture, amplified by movies, television, red carpets and social media. Some of the works will include artworks created by Native American artists, include a pair of shoes made by Kiowa artists Teri Greeves.

8

Through May 8, 2022
Tattoos: Religion, Reality and Regret
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
Oklahoma City, OK
www.nationalcowboymuseum.org

Osage family. Unknown Photographer, ca. 1880, Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2002.183.

This exhibition will explore the function, symbolism and creation of tattoos in American culture, particularly how it relates to Native American history. Curator Eric Singleton says, “Tattoos were used to express tribal affiliation and war honors, connections to divine beings, maturity rites and social or religious affiliation so meaningful to some cultures that they could carry on with a person into the afterlife.”

9

Through October 1, 2021
Harry Fonseca: Stone Poem #4
Nevada Museum of Art
Reno, NV
www.nevadaart.org

Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu/Hawaiian, 1946-2006), Stone Poem #4, 1989, oil on canvas. Collection of the Nevada Museum of Art. The Robert S. and Dorothy J. Keyser Foundation, Art of the Greater West Collection Fund.

The Nevada Museum of Art is presenting a mini exhibition on one work: Harry Fonseca’s Stone Poem #4, which was recently acquired by the museum. In addition to the painting, a significant portion of archive materials related to the artist’s research, design and creation of the Stone Poem series will be on view. The series is inspired by the artist’s visits to rock art sites in the Coso Range of the Eastern Sierra and Canyonlands National Park in Utah.