Post #5- Reading- GRQ- Discussion- The Art of Indigenous Americans Art History: A Century of Exhibitions

Article Discussion: 

The article explores the complex relationship between Indigenous American art and the American art historical canon over the past century. The author highlights various periods and exhibits that shaped the perception and inclusion of Native American art within the broader context of American art history. In the early 20th century, Native American art was celebrated as an assertion of American identity in the aftermath of World War I. Artists like Marsden Hartley and John Sloan championed contemporary Pueblo painters, emphasizing their work as uniquely American. Major exhibits, such as the 1931 Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts, aimed to establish Indian art as both classic and modern, representing thousands of years of American development. The 1950s to early 1960s were a relatively quiet period for Native American art in museums, but with the rise of civil rights movements in the late 1960s and 1970s, Indigenous American art regained prominence. Museums began to incorporate Native art into their exhibits, and this trend continued in the 1980s and 1990s. The article also discusses the challenges faced by Indigenous art in contemporary American art museums. It notes a persistent tendency to segregate Native American art from the broader narrative of American art history, despite efforts to integrate other ethnic and cultural perspectives.

GRQ (13 Fill in the Blank):

1. scholars

2. museums

3. Native art

4. Pueblo watercolors

5. esthetic value

6. Basket Dance

7. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

8. multiculturalism

9. Two American Painters (exhibited Fritz Scholder and T.C. Cannon)

10. American Indian Art: Form and Tradition

11. Native art history

12. ghettoization

13. younger generation

Discussion:

In class we discussed how Native American storytelling differed from Roman/Greek storytelling, and how the architecture resembled that. Native Americans would meet with their villages and only converse with each other to share personal stories and their faith. This wasn’t the case for the Romans and Greeks as they wanted to reach a much larger audience, so they crafted buildings that could house thousands to be used for entertainment. I found this interesting as both sides had the same core purpose, delivering a message to as many as possible, but they used drastically different methods for drastically different reasons. The art of storytelling and corresponding architecture then spilled into religion, where Cathedrals were built to tower over all over buildings to easily spot it and the design had certain criteria it had to follow. I always knew that every Cathedral kind of looked the same, but I never knew that it was because there were rules set in place.