Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
There were so many high points to Indigenous arts and entertainment this year as fashion went big time to mainstream venues and media, art went global to Italy and beyond, books won awards and cruised the reservations in a pink truck, and powerful films hit the screens in theaters and online.
FASHION: Fashion gets real with creative Natives
The debut of Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’ Fashion Week knocked it out of the park as the Santa Fe Convention Center in May hosted days of runway shows with big-name models, actors and musicians. The jaw-dropping host trio of Taboo (Black Eyed Peas), PJ Vegas (singer, producer and son of Redbone’s Pat Vegas) and champion hoop dancer Eric Michael Hernandez debuted and have since performed at several other events.
Vegas and his famous dad were featured in the first-ever Indigenous float of the Hollywood Christmas Parade, riding in the back of a red convertible.
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“Being able to ride through the same streets that my father hustled on for so many years to make a name for himself and our family was truly special,” Vegas said.
Look for PJ and Eric in a new film, “Courage,” next year with music by Genevieve Gros-Louis.
There were also pop-up vendors — handmade Mirabal Mocs, deluxe skincare from N8IV Beauty, and designer Patricia Michaels, who also had an exhibit of her gorgeous frocks at the nearby Museum of Indian Arts & Culture – and panels. It was all pulled together by originator of the show, Amber Dawn Bear Robe, who was feted at a party at the governor’s mansion. The event was covered by Vogue and The New York Times, and of course, ICT.
Bear Robe followed that up with a show at the glam Getty Museum in Los Angeles in the fall with many of the same designers. Jason Baerg sent dancers out in his silk creations. Jontay Kahm wowed with his beaded, feathered clothes worn by Miss Universe Canada Ashley CallingBull, and model Philip Bread who went international this year with shows in New York and Europe.
The newly formed Indigenous Fashion Collective hosted events in Santa Fe, New York and Los Angeles to showcase designers and models. A gala and block party in LA brought out Quannah Chasinghorse and her mother, Jodi Potts-Joseph, who led a panel on modeling and management.
Naiomi Glasses and Zefren-M were Artists in Residence with Polo Ralph Lauren, showcasing Navajo weaving through design for sportswear, luxury knit sweaters, coats and accessories. Glasses rolled out three collections and employed model Jhane Myers, producer of “Prey,” and her children, Peshawn and Phillip Bread, in lush, colorful photo spreads.
Other designers making waves this year were Brenda Wahnee of BMW Designs whose talented family members include her late brother actor Steve Reevis and her niece model Taywanee Reevis. Brenda designed costumes for the musical Bear Grease.
Sky Eagle Collections created dresses, belts, ties and shoes with vibrant prints from their charming pueblo studio in Taos. They are headed back to New York Fashion Week in 2025.
BT Luxe wowed with teepee handbags that were showcased in Cowboys & Indians Magazine. Owner/designer Brandi Lee Sawyer gives proceeds to missing and murdered Indigenous people causes.
ART: Artists shake the world from Italy to Indian Country
The biggest art show of the year goes to Jeffrey Gibson, who became the first Native American to have a solo show at the prestigious Venice Biennale in Italy. His exhibition, “the space in which to place me,” took over the whole U.S. Pavilion with neon-colored paintings and flags, beaded punching bags, films and several performances of powwow dancers flown in from Oklahoma.
Indigenous Futurism merged tradition and sci-fi at The Autry Museum of the American West and at the Getty Museum, with exhibits by Cannupa Hansker Luger, Marie Watt, Gerald Clarke, Jamie Okuma and more as part of PST Art in California, where 70 museums in the Golden State curated exhibits under the theme of Art & Science.
Joshua Trees got the artistic interpretation at the Lancaster Museum, while at SWAIA Indian Market artists from the Northwest Territories and Alaska brought exotic creations made from polar bear fur, bones and sealskin.
Brad Kahlhamer curated a knockout touring exhibit, Exploding Native Inevitable, with edgy art from all over Indian Country, while he showed his intricate metal Super Catchers at Art Basel Miami and in New York City. At the show in Scottsdale, artist Jaque Fragua, who had just tagged Nicholas Galanin’s installation,”Seletega,” at Art Basel Miami with LAND BACK, tagged his own photos, spraying RED POWER! across the pristine white museum walls.
“Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions,” on view at KADIST in San Francisco, explored how systems of mutual aid, knowledge production, and image circulation function by artists Jeneen Frei Njootli, Saif Azzuz, Kaylene Whiskey, Jim Denomie, Brook Andrew, Subash Thebe Limbu, Gordon Hookey and Kite and Corey Stover.
Montclair Art Museum reinstalled its Native American collection in a new renovated gallery space. “Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge/Native Art” features commissioned works by contemporary Indigenous artists along with pieces from the collection of over 12,000 works spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Solo shows for Native and Indigenous artists abounded this year as well, with exhibits by Dyani White Hawk, Sičáŋǧu Lakota, and Nicholas Galanin, Lingít/Unangax̂, at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Mary Sully, Yankton Dakota, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Navajo artist Melissa Cody’s intricate weavings at MoMA PS1. The Cincinnati Art Museum had a large exhibit of glass works by several Indigenous artists, while the Blanton Museum of Art currently has an exhibition curated by Wendy Red Star,Apsáalooke.
To wind up the year, ART Review named their Power 100 list with two Natives — Nicholas Galanin and Candice Hopkins — making the list. Galanin has been exhibiting fantastic, large public art in Brooklyn, Palm Springs, Abu Dhabi, and in New York galleries, while Hopkins has been leading the charge at The Forge Project in upstate New York with exhibits and residencies.
BOOKS: Stars, mothers and keep on truckin’
In a lyrical and haunting story, “Mother,” writer m.s. RedCherries took an uneven, affecting journey through time and memory to find her mother and the home she never knew. The now-familiar story of displacement from boarding schools carries on through generations.
“Wandering Stars,” by the prolific Tommy Orange, was a New York Times bestseller and longlisted for The Booker Prize. The Pulitzer Prize-finalist writer delivers a complex generational narrative that traces the legacy of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, as three generations of a family grapple with fallout and redemption.
Bringing books to the people is the mission of the big pink truck that cruised the streets of the Southwest this past spring with stops in New Mexico, distributing over 10,000 books to the Navajo Nation to help improve literacy and support Indigenous writers.
The truck is from the founders of the NDN Girls Book Club, Kinsale Drake, Navajo, and Pte San Win Little Whiteman, Oglala Lakota.. In addition, the team handed out product donations curated by sponsor Amy Denet Deal from 4KINSHIP, a Navajo brand that uses runway fashion to fund social good projects on Navajo Nation.
MUSIC: Edgy tunes fill the void
Stellar music wafted from cyber space and vinyl records this year.
Mozart Gabriel used his artistic skills to produce beat-filled songs and videos.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Raven Chacon woke the spirits with his soaring, electro sounds at concerts in Los Angeles with violinist Laura Ortman, and at the closing events in Venice, Italy, for Jeff Gibson’s show where he and his dead-serious cohorts in White People Killed Them put on a staggering hour of non-stop music.
The late pioneering blues-rock guitarist Jesse Ed Davis had a big return from the dead with an exhibit in Tulsa at the Bob Dylan Center, a new biography, and a release of unreleased music.
Meanwhile his partner in musical crime, the late poet activist John Trudell, emerged as a reluctant witness/hero in unearthed interviews in “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae,” and on a special double, red vinyl limited album release for Black Friday called “John Trudell: Wounded Indians,” with Jesse Ed on guitar and produced by Jackson Browne.
Speaking of dead pioneers, a new punk-rock band by artist Gregg Deal called Dead Pioneers just snagged an opening slot with grunge masters Pearl Jam for an upcoming tour. Their new single has the appropriate underground title, “My Spirit Animal Ate Your Spirit Animal.”
Dance: Hoop dreams and powwow parades
Eric Michael Hernandez brought his inventive hoop dancing skills to the SWAIA Fashion Show while wearing just released Naiomi Glasses X Polo Ralph Lauren sportswear.
Supaman gave his swirling, feathered, electrifying performance during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York City.
FILM: Dark tales fill the screens
Drama-filled stories of Indigenous life past and present captured audiences this year.
“Dark Winds” earned acclaim and nominations for Season 2 that ended in August, particularly for star Zahn McClarnon. The 3rd season returns in March.
Stunner Jessica Matten, also of “Dark Winds,” took a lead role in “Rez Ball,” the basketball story that slam-dunked rave reviews.
“Fancy Dance,” the drama from Erica Tremblay starring Lily Gladstone as an aunt helping her niece navigate her mother’s disappearance, finally found a home on Apple TV after a theatrical run.
“Yellowstone” finished up a long TV run with a satisfying bang that featured a standout story line about the fictional Broken Rock Tribe headed up by Gil Birmingham’s chief character, Thomas Rainwater and his right-hand-man Mo Brings Plenty. The tribe stages a late-night raid wearing war paint on the pipeline project, dragging the pipes away by horseback and dumping them in a lake. The tribe then buys the Yellowstone ranch for what they sold it for centuries ago — Land Back! — and declares it a wilderness area free from development.
“Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae,” on Hulu from director Yvonne Russo, delved into a decades-old mystery that turned up insider killers. Russo says, “When I met Denise, Annie Mae’s daughter, and learned about her struggles finding justice for what happened to her mother 30 years later, it really pulled me in and it made me look at the justice system. It made me question a lot of things. I decided, yes, I do want to come on board, and I am in it for the long haul. People were afraid of the truth. There were people who said, ‘Don’t touch the story. We’re still facing injustices that AIM was fighting for during that time, in terms of land back and MMIW.”
Announced in August, “Free Leonard Peltier,” the first film on Peltier’s story in 30 years, headed up by an all-Native crew of director Jesse Short Bull (“Lakota Nation vs. The United States”) and producer Jhane Myers (“Prey”), will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in late January.
Indigenous arts continue to expand in multiple fields, and 2025 looks bright with new film, fashion, art and music leading the charge.
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