Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
The latest: Native art as theater, an Indigenous female soccer star and Forge Project winners
ART: Exhibit and performance play off each other
The Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College hosts the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theater as a point of origin for development of contemporary Indigenous art.
The exhibition, “Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-determination Since 1969,” opens June 24 and runs through Nov. 26 at the center’s Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale in Hudson, New York.
SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. CONTRIBUTE TODAY.
Curated by the Forge Project’s Candice Hopkins, Carcross/Tagish First Nation, the exhibition includes more than 100 works, beginning with the role that Native artists have played in the self-determination era sparked by the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. It features works by Native American, First Nations, Inuit and Alaska Native artists.
Hopkins, who is also the Forge Project’s executive director, has been named as CCS Bard’s inaugural Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies.
“This exhibition takes its impetus from a modest, yet significant document: ‘Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Process,’ published by the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1969,” Hopkins said in a statement.
“Inspired by this document, the exhibition, ‘Indian Theater, ‘ is attuned to the intersections between objects, performance — in its expanded forms — film and video, and visual sovereignty in Native North American contemporary art.”
Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College and founding director of the Hessel Museum of Art said the exhibition puts contemporary Indigenous art in context.
“This exhibition marks a critical contribution to contextualizing contemporary Indigenous art as part of a larger artistic movement whose history has been understudied and overlooked,” Eccles said in a statement. “This groundbreaking presentation at the Hessel Museum provides a new framework for the interpretation of Indigenous contemporary art, a field of study that we look forward to continuing to advance with new research and curatorial innovation.”
The exhibit traces art from 1969 through a survey of film, video, performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, and beadwork to pay homage to the legacy of Native aesthetic traditions.
It includes a series of soft sculptures commissioned for the exhibition of oversized Diné earrings and necklaces by artist Eric-Paul Riege. Over his day-long durational performance, his suspended sculptures will be activated and sounded, becoming an extension of the artist’s body and Diné cosmology. The Riege performance will take place in the galleries during opening weekend, June 24-25.
Also on view are works by artists including KC Adams, Métis; Sonny Assu, Ligwiłda’xw Kwakwaka’wakw from Wei Wai Kum Nation; Natalie Ball, Klamath/Modoc; Rick Bartow, Wiyot; Bob Boyer, Métis; Dana Claxton, Lakota; TJ Cuthand, Plains Cree, Scottish, Irish; and Ruth Cuthand, Plains Cree, Scottish, Irish, Canadian.
Additional performances by Ya Tseen and Emily Johnson/Catalyst as well as a series of artist talks will be curated by the Center for Indigenous Studies in coordination with “Indian Theater.”
FILM: From the Pueblo to soccer stadiums
Madison Hammond, who is Navajo, San Felipe Pueblo and Black, is the first Indigenous player to kick it in the National Women’s Soccer League.
A new short film, “Katishtya Girl,” a mini-documentary directed by Kyle Bell, Thlopthlocco Creek Tribal Town, and produced by IllumiNative and Reno Productions, follows her from the bright lights of stadiums in Los Angeles back to the San Felipe Pueblo outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
At 25 and a midfielder for the Los Angeles Angel City FC, Hammond has already broken barriers for Native athletes. The short film follows her journey of navigating multiple worlds — achieving her potential on the field, realizing how to maximize her impact off of it, and returning home to be with the matriarchs who raised her.
The documentary packs in a lot — mental health, identity, family, and overcoming self-doubt. The film introduces her grandmother, mother, sister, Diné golfer (and Madison’s uncle) Notah Begay III, and the tight-knit community that shapes who she is and guides her toward who she is meant to become.
“I am here because of what I can do,” Hammond says in the film. “I am good enough to leave more of an imprint than just being the first Native American to play in the NWSL.”
Fellowship: Six artists receive Forge Project grants
The 2023 Fellows have been announced by the Forge Project — the Native-led art, culture, and decolonial education initiative on the unceded homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok in Upstate New York.
The six members are reflective of the diversity of Indigenous thinkers, artists, and activists working in Native North America, encompassing an array of cultural practices and geographic locales that honor Indigenous pasts and build Native futures, officials said.
The 2023 Forge Project Fellows are:
*Margeux Abeyta, Taos Pueblo and Diné, who examines governance and communication by working across traditional woodworking, digital fabrication, sound, and technology design,
*Brent Michael Davids, Mohican/Munsee-Lenape, a flutist, composer, and designer of musical instruments, as well as co-director of the Lenape Center and co-founder of the Native American Composer Apprentice Project, which champions Indigenous youth composers.
*Lucy Grignon, Stockbridge-Munsee/Menominee, is a seed-saver, educator, knowledge-keeper, and advocate for preserving Stockbridge-Munsee foodways, researching and practicing traditional agricultural methods.
*Emily Johnson, Yup’ik, an artist, organizer, and land and water protector, is known for her choreography’s deep engagement with place, temporality, and co-creation.
*Suzanne Kite, Oglála Lakȟóta ,often known as “Kite,” is a performance artist, visual artist, and composer concerned with contemporary Lakota ontologies
*Rachel Martin, Tlingít, a multidisciplinary artist, is best known for her works on paper that merge traditional iconography with contemporary imagery, tracing Indigenous histories with visual narratives.
Each Fellow receives $25,000, as well as full access to the Forge Project site, libraries, and art collection during three-week fellowships on-site at Forge. The new class of Fellows begins early this summer.
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute $5 or $10 today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter.