Featuring the work of 75 Indigenous contemporary artists representing more than 50 tribes across North America, To Take Shape & Meaning: Form and Design in Contemporary American Indian Art is rooted in tradition while celebrating those pushing the boundaries of modern art. The exhibit, on view through July 28 at the North Carolina Museum of Art, showcases a vast variety of objects including jewelry, attire, pottery, bronze and glass sculpture, basketry and other media that convey meaning and function, and demonstrate the continuity and evolution of Native and Indigenous arts in contemporary culture.
Allan Houser (Fort Sill Apache), Camp Talk, 1979, bronze, H. 23½ × 22½ x 21½". Courtesy of Allan Houser Inc.. © Chiinde LLC, Photo: Courtesy of Allan Houser Inc.
The exhibition, comprised of solely three-dimensional artworks, includes baskets made of blown glass, cars transformed into vessels, beaded punching bags, elaborate fashion ensembles and other pieces that showcase cutting edge transformations of conventional understandings of form and function.
Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock/Wailaki/Okinawan), Adaptation II, 2012, shoes designed by Christian Louboutin, leather, glass beads, porcupine quills, sterling silver cones, brass sequins and chicken feathers, 85/8 x 3¼ x 93/16”. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Virginia Doneghy, by exchange. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art.
“Form and design are two of the most ancient elements in American Indian art,” says guest curator Nancy Strickland Fields (Lumbee), director of the Museum of the Southeast American Indian at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. “From millennia past to the present, Native artists have manipulated their materials into fantastic expressions of art. The contemporary artists featured in the show are among the most acclaimed in their genre and are credited with pushing their respective art forms in ways that both retain meaning and in true tradition, continue to evolve culture.”
Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo), Maria, 2014, 1985 Chevy El Camino, 54 x 72 x 202”. Courtesy of the artist; photo: Kate Russell.
Among the featured artists are Marcus Amerman, Keri Ataumbi, Martha Berry, Tom Farris, Anita Fields, Raven Halfmoon, Allan Houser, Steven Paul Judd, Senora Lynch, Jamie Okuma, Virgil Ortiz, Rose B. Simpson, Preston Singletary, Roxanne Swentzell, Marie Watt and Margaret Roach Wheeler. Through careful curation—both in terms of the objects selected and their arrangement—themes of place of being, genealogy, encoded commentary, rootedness, revival and evolution run through the exhibition.
Marie Watt (Seneca Nation), Acknowledgment: Indigenous Land, Pachamama, Story Circle, 2020, cast bronze, cedar, LP Unito blankets, patches and embroidery floss, 45 x 28 x 28”. North Carolina Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Matrons of the Arts and with additional funds from various donors, by exchange.
Fields continues, “To Take Shape and Meaning brings together a wide range of Indigenous world views, ideas, experiences, traditions, culture, media and emphasizes the continuity of Native arts, both collective and individual expressions of Native America. This exhibition offers a unique insight into American Indian culture and identity through Native America’s most renowned artists, providing audiences with an unprecedented opportunity to gain a nuanced and expansive understanding of Native people and culture.”
Through July 28, 2024
To Take Shape & Meaning: Form and Design in Contemporary American Indian Art
North Carolina Museum of Art 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 839-6262, ncartmuseum.org
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