“WHERE ARE ALL THE GREAT COLLECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN ART?”

By Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

“WHERE ARE ALL THE GREAT COLLECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN ART?”

There are none. No in depth, great collections of painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture and video. None, nada. There are a few, very few small collections which would include the Dorothy and Hinrich Peiper Collection, the Missoula Art Museum and the Ideljorg Museum.

“ARE THE BARBARIANS AT THE GATES?”

Yes, contemporary Native artists today are much more businesslike and aggressive about addressing inequities in the mainstream museum world.

The Problem

There is active collecting of pottery, weaving and other craftwork by mainstream museums, museums specializing in Native American art and private collectors. But again, there is no steady, in depth collecting of fine art, high art, new media or cutting edge.

• I’m speaking of collecting which happens over an ongoing basis, over a period of 20 years and is a steady continuum.
• I’m speaking of collecting beyond a particular region so that it encompasses a wide swath of the contemporary Native artworld.
• I’m speaking of collecting more than 1 piece from each individual artist so that an informative history is contained in the collection. An example would be the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of Terry Winter’s prints. They own 96 of his 115 pieces of work. That’s a serious collection.

I should mention that the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe has been steadily collecting from students and faculty for over 30 years. Their collection is perhaps the largest contemporary collection in the U.S., yet it contains only a sampling of only those students and teachers who have passed through their institution.

I hope at this point, those of you in the audience are asking the question, “If this is the case, what has caused this problem and what can be done about?”

The Reasons

There are multiple reasons why our mainstream institutions are being shortsighted or are confused and not collecting contemporary Native Artists:

• There are very few monographs, catalogs or biographical materials written on contemporary Native Americans which would help educate the mainstream..

• There is a lack of serious critical writing in mainstream art journals.

• There are very few private collectors who focus on contemporary Native art.

• Native artists generally show in places with small budgets so there is next to no advertising in the major art journals.

• There are no serious collections of contemporary Native art in the major New York Museums and there are no donations from private collectors being made to them because they are few in number and they lack emphasis on collecting either because of economics or long term commitment.

• There have been no major national touring exhibits of contemporary Native painters or sculptors or photographers or printmakers, accompanied by large extensive catalogs with 30 to fifty artists and with writing by important New York art critics. Yes, there have been exhibits like this for Latino, Black and Asian artists but not for Native artists, yet we have produced work that is equal in scale and quality.

• The NMAI in DC chose not to take my advice to open the museum with a large survey exhibit of contemporary Indian art by living Indians. I felt that we needed to show the world that we are alive and productive.

• A common criticism is that the museums don’t know where to place our work; perhaps as an extension of antiquated art from the past or should our art be shown with other contemporary artists work. If museums do anything then our work is added to the antiquities area such as the newly remodeled Denver Art Museum has recently done. But generally confusion causes rigor mortis to set in and they prefer to do nothing at all, meaning no collecting, hoping that the future will sort this out. Generally living African American artists are included in contemporary art, whereas African objets are confined to the antiquities areas of a museum. That seems like an easy solution, why shouldn’t it also work for Native American contemporary art.

• Native American museums or Native departments within museums are not collecting slides, resumes, visiting artists studios or contacting us to inquire about our work or to develop a strategy for collecting. They purchase new work in a haphazard way with no eye to forming a collection. Even their computer lists have no category for contemporary art separate from traditional crafts or antiquities.

• Most writing about contemporary Native art is done by anthropologists and art historians, who tend to look backward in time rather than art critics, who tend to deal with the present and living peoples. For that reason there’s a general tendency to place us somewhere in the past or enjoin us with antiquated art. The fact is that all artists look to their roots to influence their art. Most all cutting edge African American artists make art about their ethnicity. Miriam Schapiro draws upon Russian Constructivism. Yet contemporary Native artists are marginalized for doing the same. It’s a colonial world indeed, when only we Native Americans are asked to follow the European canon in order to have credibility with the museums.

• As a whole, living contemporary Native artists have parents who did not go to college. Primarily this is the first generation to receive a college degree. In comparison, the White and African American communities often produce artists from middle and upper class families. Some of these artists leave ivy league colleges and step into ready-made careers in New York. Native artists have no such access to positions of privilege because we have not had a Native middle class or upper middle class to support us. I’m not complaining, I’m stating this as fact.

• African Americans were in similar circumstances perhaps 30 years ago, but with the advent of Black scholars such as Bell Hooks, Henry Louis Gates, Cornel West, Thelma Golden, Lowery Sims and many others writing about art and artists, it has allowed them to reinterpret themselves and it has given their ideology wide exposure. Native artists are still in a colonial and subservient position to the white community of scholars.

• There is still suspicion that our contemporary work is bastardized and not as “authentic” as something made by traditionalists. This too is colonialism at work. The fact is that almost all contemporary Native artists are connected to tribe and community whether it’s a reservation or an urban community. The fact that 70% of Native people live in the urban centers, simply means their community may be more pan Indian today. That said, the artists themselves, create yet another sub-cultural community. Still, Native artists often study the traditions of their tribe, participate in some ceremonies and keep Indian Kosher, if you will.

The Indian Markets have rules about categories of Indian art and further a blue ribbon on an artwork (generally given by a group of white bankers, doctors, lawyers and collectors of antiquities) is a maquette for what artists should be creating. So that over the past 30 years, I’ve witnessed the old handmade organic pots, painted with yucca brushes and natural pigments move into the realm of industrial eye dazzlers with slicked up, shiny surfaces painted with acrylic paint, often referred to as a folksy “store bought paint.” Certainly a painting will be more acceptable to a collector if blessed through the ritualized process of an Indian Market blue ribbon and if judged by a predominantly non-Indian jury. In visiting homes of the Indian Market collectors it’s not uncommon to view paintings on the walls with yellowed dusty ribbons hanging across a portion of the face or lighted cases with pots all proudly wearing a big blue ribbon. There are many other reasons why contemporary Native artists are marginalized, these are only a few. There is work to be done in changing this situation.

The Resolution

I invite this audience to join us in a reckoning of this situation. For I, and many of my peers, see this as a dire situation. We are aging, in fact many of us are the elderly of the contemporary artists now and are feeling that change will not come until we’ve passed on. At some point in the future we will be seen as an important art movement in both the Native community and the art world in general, not unlike the Harlem Renaissance, perhaps on a smaller scale but certainly in combination with current writing, poetry, new music and theater. In the future, people will scramble to locate pieces of our work.

Here are my suggestions:

• Begin a contemporary Native American collection for your institution, your museum or your university. It’s easier than you think. Start small and purchase economical drawings or prints. Native American art is probably one of the best bargains in the art world today. Many university museums are collecting contemporary marginalized artists such as Cuban artists or Polish artists so why not our own Indigenous peoples. Never ask a Native artist to give you work. First of all, they are usually in low income circumstances and secondly, there may be many other institutions asking for donations from them.

• Consider writing an article for a mainstream art journal rather than an anthropological or a historical periodical and be sure to interview the artist in person rather than repeat misinformation. Remember you will learn more from them than simply depending on your own interpretation of previously written information.

• Why not organize an exhibition for your institution or school? Are you involved with Indian art in any way? If so, Indian people believe that you have a responsibility to give back? Has your school ever had a contemporary exhibit? Only one? Perhaps there’s room for another one since now you realize that this is an educational process about a living peoples and who better to get your information from than the people themselves.

• Have you brought any contemporary Native speakers to your school or institution this year? They should come every year and several times a year if you have a Native Studies department. Remember that contact with living artists will educate everyone.

Suzi Gablik writes in The Reenchantment of Art that she wants to argue for a new framework of modernist aesthetics that dispenses with the ego-logical, fixed self of the Cartesian and Kantian traditions, which she calls the Dominator model. She states that Richard Serra is the ultimate model. She maintains that, “ Community is the starting point for new modes of relatedness, in which the paradigm of social conscience replaces that of the individual genius.” Gablik insists there is another kind of art, not yet found but one which speaks to the power of connectedness with an intuitive wisdom and has regard for the natural world.

Let me close with this thought. I have no qualms in saying out loud, dear Suzi Gablik, I beg to differ with you but the art you speak of is here and it has been here. Yes, it is the art of the future, it contains all those things you speak of, it offers hope, community, intuitive wisdom, depth, connectedness and most of all a regard for the natural world. It’s called contemporary Native American Art. Thank you.

©2005 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Independent Artist, Corrales, NM

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