John Fire Lame Deer, the Lakota holy man, said, “Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence.”
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Evolvers, 2019, archival pigment print. Purchased with funds from the Paul L. and Phyllis C. Wattis Fund, UMFA2022.3.1.
Air is the title and subject of an exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, running through December 11.
Curator Whitney Tassie, says, “This exhibition illuminates how air connects us to each other and the planet. While the invisible resource is often taken for granted, the artists in the exhibition make visible the many, complex facets of air. With a focus on justice, their works expose how we impact air, how we rely on it, and how we share it.”
Merritt Johnson, forest seed basket for present and future understanding, 2019, handwoven black ash wood and Sitka Spruce cone seeds. Purchased with funds from the Phyllis Cannon Wattis Endowment Fund, UMFA2022.5.1. Image courtesy of the artist, Accola Griefen Gallery and Patel Brown Gallery.
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) dressed her four nephews in traditional garb of loin cloth, feather bundles and contemporary Ray-Ban sunglasses—a provocative blend of the past and the present, the boys also representing the future. In her photograph, Evolvers, they run through the dry desert near Palm Springs, California, among a sea of wind turbines, their feather bundles emulating the revolving blades.
Naomi Bebo (Menominee/Ho-Chunk), wearing her Beaded Mask, 2015, seed beads, deer hide, ermine and ribbons on gas mask. Collection of the Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth, Marguerite L. Gilmore Charitable Foundation Fund D2014.8, photograph © David Young-Wolff.
Merritt Johnson’s forest seed basket for present and future understanding, in the form of a portable oxygen tank, is handwoven from black ash and contains Sitka Spruce cone seeds. Johnson says, “The seeds are capable of growing large, strong trees, tolerant of wind and saline air, capable of growing forests in wet acidic soil where few other trees can thrive (Indigenous to the pacific coast of North America). The tank form holds contemporary attempts at respiratory support, emergency efforts to stabilize failing health, and our reliance on our most necessary bodily functions… The work insists on our dependence on forests for clean, oxygenated air, on the connection and interdependence of all life, and the responsibility we have to everything living now and in the future.”
Naomi Bebo (Menominee/Ho-Chunk), Woodland Child in Gas Mask, 2015, mixed media. Photo by Jason S. Ordaz, courtesy the artist © Naomi Bebo.
The museum explains that in addition to the fine art, “The exhibition also includes posters by 16 student artists who won the 2020 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest and contributions from community members. Gallery interactives include a space for breathing meditation, a postcard station encouraging outreach to legislators, an infographic demonstrating inequities in air pollution exposure in Salt Lake County, and a digital map where visitors can check the air quality of their neighborhoods in real time.”
Through December 11, 2022
Air
Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah
410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
(801) 581-7332, umfa.utah.edu
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