Making History: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

By Institute of American Indian Arts and Nancy Marie Mithlo

Making History: The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts is a unique contribution to the fields of visual culture, arts education, and American Indian studies. Written by scholars actively producing Native art resources, this book guides readers—students, educators, collectors, and the public—in how to learn about Indigenous cultures as visualized in our creative endeavors. By highlighting the rich resources and history of the Institute of American Indian Arts, the only tribal college in the nation devoted to the arts whose collections reflect the full tribal diversity of Turtle Island, these essays present a best-practices approach to understanding Indigenous art from a Native-centric point of view. Topics include biography, pedagogy, philosophy, poetry, coding, arts critique, curation, and writing about Indigenous art.

Featuring two original poems, ten essays authored by senior scholars in the field of Indigenous art, nearly two hundred works of art, and twenty-four archival photographs from the IAIA’s nearly sixty-year history, Making History offers an opportunity to engage the contemporary Native Arts movement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780826362100

Book preview

MAKING HISTORY

University of New Mexico Press / Albuquerque

MAKING

HISTORY

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

Institute of American Indian Arts

Edited by Nancy Marie Mithlo

Foreword by Robert Martin

Thank you to the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation

and the Institute of American Indian Arts for funding support.

© 2020 by the University of New Mexico Press

All rights reserved. Published 2020

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

NAMESMithlo, Nancy Marie, editor.

TITLEMaking history: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts: Institute of American Indian Arts / edited by Nancy Marie Mithlo; foreword by Robert Martin.

DESCRIPTIONFirst edition. | Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

IDENTIFIERSLCCN 2020013742 (print) | LCCN 2020013743 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826362094 (paperback) | ISBN 9780826362100 (e-book)

SUBJECTSLCSH: Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. | Institute of American Indian Arts. | Indian art—Study and teaching—United States. | Art criticism—Study and teaching—United States.

CLASSIFICATIONLCC N6538.A4 M35 2020 (print) | LCC N6538.A4 (e-book) | DDC 704.03/97—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013742

LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013743

COVER ILLUSTRATIONSfront Bill Soza War Soldier (Cahuilla/White Mountain Apache), Self-Portrait, 1968, oil on canvas, 21 in. × 21 in., MoCNA Collection, MS-22 (Photo by Addison Doty). spine Janet Nipi Ikuutaq (Nunavut, Baker Lake), Fighting over the Dead Seal, Edition 10/14, 1997, woodcut on paper, 21 in. × 25.5 in., MoCNA Collection, CAN-27 (photo by Jason S. Ordaz). back Jeff Kahm (Plains Cree), Converse, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 90 in. × 90 in., MoCNA Collection, CAN-43 (photo by Addison Doty)

TITLE PAGE ILLUSTRATION: Raymond Winters (Hunkpapa Sioux), Giant Symbols, 1971, oil on canvas, 96 in. x 60 in., MoCNA Collection, S-124 (photo by Addison Doty).

DESIGNED BYMindy Basinger Hill

DEDICATED TO CHARLES A. DAILEY (1935–2019)

FOR LIGHTING THE FIRE

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Foreword / Robert Martin

Introduction / American Indian Curatorial Practice: State of the Field / Nancy Marie Mithlo

Introduction to the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Collection and the IAIA Archives / Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer and Ryan S. Flahive

Indian with a Watch / Poem by Alex Jacobs

1The Gaze in Indigenous Art: Depictions of the Body and Nudity / Nancy Marie Mithlo

2Mapping Indigenous Space and Place / John Paul Rangel

3Presentations & Representations: Images of Dances from the Southwest and West / Suzanne Newman Fricke

4Transforming Art History in the Classroom / Lara M. Evans

5No Rules Make Art: The Work of C. Maxx Stevens / Patsy Phillips

6Historical Essays

About Professor Charles Dailey / Jessie Ryker-Crawford and Stephen C. Fadden

Major Influences in the Development of Twentieth-Century Native American Art / Charles A. Dailey

Cultural Self-Determination: A Conversation with David Warren / Nancy Marie Mithlo and David Warren

Teaching from Three Knowledge Spaces: The Native Eyes Project / David Wade Chambers

Illumination / Poem by Elizabeth Woody

Contributors

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

PLATES

FOREWORD

Osiyo! It is a privilege and honor to welcome you to this publication, Making History, a first-time collaboration between the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the University of New Mexico Press. IAIA, established in 1962, is celebrating its fifty-eighth year as the birthplace of contemporary Native art. We continue to build on this legacy and illustrious history, which led to the emergence of a Native arts movement and a truly unique institution. It is at IAIA where Native students take pride in their heritage while their artistic creativity is nurtured and encouraged to flower. We are pleased to participate in the creation of this publication, a groundbreaking contribution to the field of contemporary Native art.

The United States Congress acknowledged our prominence when it chartered the IAIA in 1986 as the only federal college charged with responsibility for supporting and fostering scholarship and research in Native arts and cultures. In essence, Congress acknowledged that Native arts and cultures are this country’s only Indigenous art and cultural forms, a contribution of tremendous importance to the richness of the United States.

IAIA offers certificates and associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Studio Arts, Film, Creative Writing, Museum Studies, and Indigenous Liberal Studies. In 2013, we expanded our mission to include an MFA in Creative Writing, which has graduated ninety-five students since the program was launched. Moreover, IAIA is the only institution of higher education in New Mexico offering fine arts degrees accredited by both the Higher Learning Commission and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.

IAIA’s enrollment has grown to more than five hundred students, representing an average of one hundred Indigenous nations from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. With enrollments generally decreasing at colleges across the country, IAIA continues to be a very attractive choice for students interested in a world-class contemporary Native arts education. Our growth is due to a combination of factors, including expanded academic programming and new initiatives in recruitment and retention.

In addition to the MFA, a performing arts program that was eliminated in the 1990s due to severe budget reductions reemerged in 2014 as a minor. At the same time, IAIA launched a successful fundraising campaign to build a $9.5 million Performing Arts and Fitness Center, which opened in January 2018. This newest building on campus will enhance IAIA’s ability to expand academic programs in both performing arts and in fitness, thus permitting the college to create the first bachelor’s program in performing arts in the country offered exclusively from an Indigenous perspective.

A new IAIA student success initiative, the 15 to Finish Program, created financial incentives to encourage students to complete their degrees in a timely fashion—four years instead of five or more. Senior-year tuition and a book-fee waiver are awarded to students who maintain satisfactory progress over four years by completing fifteen credits per semester.

In establishing strategic partnerships with Walt Disney Imagineering, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, the Stagecoach Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute, the University of New Mexico Press, and others, IAIA provides its students with expanded opportunities for scholarships, internships, artist-in-residence programs, and employment.

The aforementioned affords the context for IAIA’s compelling mission to empower creativity and leadership in Native arts and cultures, and is manifested in more than four thousand alumni who have achieved success as prominent artists, writers, museum professionals, scholars, filmmakers, professors, attorneys, tribal leaders, and business entrepreneurs. Our distinguished alumni include Roxanne Swentzell, recipient of the 2016 Heard Museum Spirit Award; Dan Namingha, recipient of the 2016 Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures Living Treasure award; Jody Naranjo, recipient of a 2018 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts; and Terese Mailhot, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Heart Berries, just to name a few. We are proud to recognize also the first Native American United States Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, as an IAIA alumna.

The writers of Making History have been educated by or have contributed to IAIA as educators, artists, and art professionals. Of special note is Nancy Marie Mithlo, PhD, a renowned professor and Native American art historian and scholar, who is both the editor of and a contributor to this book. This publication is the product of Dr. Mithlo’s visionary leadership, energy, and passionate commitment to the field of contemporary Native art.

IAIA’s Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, an integral component of our mission, has assumed a leading role in raising the profile of contemporary Native art in national and international venues and is the only museum in the world focusing exclusively on exhibiting, collecting, and interpreting the most progressive work of Native American artists. Its more than eight thousand contemporary Native artworks form the largest and most noteworthy collection of its kind in the world. This book is a resource that will showcase this amazing collection to a much broader audience.

Making History appropriately illuminates the vibrant spirt at the forefront of contemporary Native arts and offers invaluable insights from a Native perspective. As a result, it is an invaluable teaching tool for tribal audiences and an essential resource for all arts readers. I am confident that this book will enlighten and empower the creative spirit for generations to come.

Wado,

DR. ROBERT MARTIN, CHEROKEE NATION

PRESIDENT, IAIA

MAKING HISTORY

Introduction

American Indian Curatorial Practice

STATE OF THE FIELD

NANCY MARIE MITHLO

The book you are reading is the result of eight years of planning, fundraising, group meetings, endless drafts, conference calls, and midnight worry. For myself, this effort is the culmination of thirty-five years of experience working with the Institute of American Indian Arts. From my student days in the mid-1980s to the present, the IAIA has continued to provide me with inspiration and drive in my role as an American Indian educator in the arts.

The group that generously agreed to participate in this project collectively wished to make an educational resource for learning about Native arts that did not alienate American Indian students. We wanted to provide educational materials in a form that reflected Indigenous knowledge systems—materials that are holistic, embracive, and free of jargon. Even small details such as the use of we or us were examined throughout to ensure that readers would be excited by the information provided and feel welcomed and spoken to, not about. The Indigenous Studies approach pursued does not follow strictly chronological or regional premises, but rather seeks out defining moments of conflict in the history of Native North American arts.¹

It is important to note that this book is not a historiography of contemporary Native art that documents key performances, artists, collections, and pivotal events such as the establishment of Native arts organizations. While such documentation is surely needed, this specific project is not that encompassing, nor is it directed solely to internal scholarly debate concerning significance or value. Making History also does not address the systematic exclusion of Indigenous art paradigms and history in Western art discourse. Rather, our focus is on providing a scaffold of resources for emerging Native arts scholars, Native and non-Native readers, students, and academics who wish to understand the tenor and tone of what this field is about and how to approach teaching and learning about American Indian arts.

Making History specifically foregrounds the ideas and works that emerge from the IAIA experience in an effort to highlight the often-unknown histories of this central resource for Native arts production, teaching, and research. In planning the book, we referenced our desired approach to guiding readers as creating embedded conversations. Conversations here connotes a dialectical give-and-take. Readers should imagine a guide walking a visitor through familiar territory, taking pains not