Art & Design: Art History: Theory & Methodology

Indians Playing Indian by Monika Siebert Contemporary indigenous peoples in North America confront a unique predicament. While they are reclaiming their historic status as sovereign nations, mainstream popular culture continues to depict them as cultural minorities similar to other ethnic Americans. These depictions of indigenous peoples as ?Native Americans? complete the broader narrative of America as a refuge to the world's immigrants and a home to contemporary multicultural democracies, such as the United States and Canada. But they fundamentally misrepresent indigenous peoples, whose American history has been not of immigration but of colonization.   Monika Siebert's Indians Playing Indian first identifies this phenomenon as multicultural misrecognition, explains its sources in North American colonial history and in the political mandates of multiculturalism, and describes its consequences for contemporary indigenous cultural production. It then explores the responses of indigenous artists who take advantage of the ongoing popular interest in Native American culture and art while offering narratives of the political histories of their nations in order to resist multicultural incorporation.   Each chapter of Indians Playing Indian showcases a different medium of contemporary indigenous art'museum exhibition, cinema, digital fine art, sculpture, multimedia installation, and literary fiction'and explores specific rhetorical strategies artists deploy to forestall multicultural misrecognition and recover political meanings of indigeneity. The sites and artists discussed include the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC; filmmakers at Inuit Isuma Productions; digital artists/photographers Dugan Aguilar, Pamela Shields, and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie; sculptor Jimmie Durham; and novelist LeAnne Howe.

Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies by Ballengee Morris (Editor) “In a field with the unique mission of helping budding artists, teachers, students, and researchers embrace all ways of knowing, what might we learn from Indigenous research, pedagogy, and contemporary art practices? And how might educators approach Native cultures differently if contemporary Native artists were studied as agents of social change with important stories to tell, if research was seen as a connecting and emancipatory practice, and teaching as holistic and egalitarian?”

Canadian Indigenous Literature and Art: decolonizing education, culture, and society by Carol A. Mullen Canadian Indigenous Literature and Artsheds light on Indigenous justice perspectives in Indigenous literature and art. Decolonizing education, culture, and society is the revolutionary pulse of this book aimed at educational reform and comprehensive change. Select works of published literature and exhibited art are interpreted in the critical discourse presented. Indigeneity as a lens is used to deconstruct education, accountability, and policy in Canada and globally. A new hypothesis is advanced about colonization and Indigenous voicelessness, helplessness, and genocidal victimhood as unchanging conditions of humanity. Activist pushback is demonstrated in the rise of Indigenous sources originating in global Canada. While colonization dehumanizes Canadian Indigenous peoples, a global movement has erupted, changing pockets of curriculum, teaching, and research. Through agency and solidarity in public life and, gradually, education, Indigenous justice is a mounting paradigmatic force. Indigenous voices speak about colonialism as a crisis of humanity that provokes truth-telling and protest. Glimpses of Indigenous futurity offer new possibilities for decolonizing our globally connected lives. Actionable steps include educating for a just world and integrating Indigenous justice in other advocacy theories."Compelling, interesting, important, and original. I was impressed with Carol Mullen's knowledge as well as how she wove together this knowledge with both the literature and personal experience throughout this beautifully and soulfully written text. I appreciate how she illuminated spaces and people whose work is often relegated to dark corners." - Pamela J. Konkol, Professor of Foundations, Social Policy, and Research at Concordia University Chicago

The Early Years of Native American Art History by Janet Catherine Berlo This collection of essays deals with the development of Native American art history as a discipline rather than with particular art works or artists. It focuses on the early anthropologists, museum curators, dealers, and collectors, and on the multiple levels of understanding and misunderstanding, appropriation and reappropriation which characterized their transactions. The essays examine major figures, art forms, institutions, and events of the early years when Native American artworks were first collected, studied, and displayed.

Tales of Ghosts: First Nations art in British Columbia, 1922-61 by Ronald W. Hawker The years between 1922 and 1961, often referred to as the "Dark Ages of Northwest Coast art," have largely been ignored by art historians, and dismissed as a period of artistic decline. Tales of Ghosts compellingly reclaims this era, arguing that it was instead a critical period during which the art played an important role in public discourses on the status of First Nations people in Canadian society. Those with an interest in First Nations and Canadian history and art history, anthropology, museology, and post-colonial studies will be delighted by the publication of this major contribution to their fields.

Native North American Art by Janet Catherine Berlo; Ruth B. Phillips This lively introductory survey of indigenous North American arts from ancient times to the present explores both the shared themes and imagery found across the continent and the distinctive traditions of each region. Focusing on the richness of artwork created in the US and Canada, Native North American Art, Second Edition, discusses 3,000 years of architecture, wood and rock carvings, basketry, dance masks, clothing and more. The expanded text discusses twentieth- and twenty-first-century arts in all media including works by James Luna, Kent Monkman, Nadia Myre, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Will Wilson, and many more. Authors Berlo and Phillips incorporate new research and scholarship, examining such issues as art and ethics, gender, representation, and the colonial encounter. By bringing into one conversation the seemingly separate realms of the sacred and the secular, the political and the domestic, and the ceremonial and the commercial, Native North American Art shows how visual arts not only maintain the integrity of spiritual and social systems within Native North American societies, but have long been part of a cross-cultural experience as well.

Art for a New Understanding by Mindy N. Besaw; Candice Hopkins; Manuela Well-Off-Man Art for a New Understanding, an exhibition from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art that opened in October 2018, seeks to radically expand and reposition the narrative of American art since 1950 by charting a history of the development of contemporary Indigenous art from the United States and Canada, beginning when artists moved from more regionally-based conversations and practices to national and international contemporary art contexts. This fully illustrated volume includes essays by art historians and historians and reflections by the artists included in the collection. Also included are key contemporary writings--from the 1950s onward--by artists, scholars, and critics, investigating the themes of transculturalism and pan-Indian identity, traditional practices conducted in radically new ways, displacement, forced migration, shadow histories, the role of personal mythologies as a means to reimagine the future, and much more. As both a survey of the development of Indigenous art from the 1950s to the present and a consideration of Native artists within contemporary art more broadly, Art for a New Understanding expands the definition of American art and sets the tone for future considerations of the subject. It is an essential publication for any institution or individual with an interest in contemporary Native American art, and an invaluable resource in ongoing scholarly considerations of the American contemporary art landscape at large.  

Hearts of our people : Native women artists by Ahlberg Yohe, Jill, author, curator.; Greeves, Teri, author, acurator.; Silver, Laura (Editor), editor "Women have long been the creative force behind Native American art, yet their individual contributions have been largely unrecognized, instead treated as anonymous representations of entire cultures. 'Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists' explores the artistic achievements of Native women and establishes their rightful place in the art world. This lavishly illustrated book, a companion to the landmark exhibition, includes works of art from antiquity to the present, made in a variety of media from textiles and beadwork to video and digital arts. It showcases more than 115 artists from the United States and Canada, spanning over one thousand years, to reveal the ingenuity and innovation fthat have always been foundational to the art of Native women."--Page 4 of cover.

When I Remember I See Red by Frank LaPena (Editor); Mark Dean Johnson (Editor); Kristina Perea Gilmore (Other Primary Creator); Edmund Jerry G. Brown (Foreword by) When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California features contemporary art by First Californians and other American Indian artists with strong ties to the state. Spanning the past five decades, the exhibition includes more than sixty-five works in various media, from painting, sculpture, prints, and photography, to installation and video. More than forty artists are represented, among them pioneers such as Rick Bartow, George Blake, Dalbert Castro, Frank Day, Harry Fonseca, Frank LaPena, Jean LaMarr, James Luna, Karen Noble, Fritz Scholder, Brian Tripp, and Franklin Tuttle, as well as emerging and mid-career artists. Taking cues from their forebears, members of the younger generation often combine art and activism, embracing issues of identity, politics, and injustice to produce innovative--and frequently enlightening--work. The exhibition, along with the accompanying catalogue, transcends borders, with some California artists working outside the state, and several artists of non-California tribes living and creating within its boundaries. Diverse cultural influences coupled with the extraordinary dissemination of images made possible by technology have led to new forms of expression, making When I Remember I See Red a richly layered experience.   Published in association with the Crocker Art Museum   Exhibition dates: Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento: October 20, 2019-January 26, 2020 Institute of American Indian Arts, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe: August 14, 2020-January 3, 2021 Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles: July 18, 2021-February 27, 2022 ]

Colonized Through Art by Marinella Lentis Colonized through Art explores how the federal government used art education for American Indian children as an instrument for the "colonization of consciousness," hoping to instill the values and ideals of Western society while simultaneously maintaining a political, social, economic, and racial hierarchy. Focusing on the Albuquerque Indian School in New Mexico, the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, and the world's fairs and local community exhibitions, Marinella Lentis examines how the U.S. government's solution to the "Indian problem" at the end of the nineteenth century emphasized education and assimilation. Educational theories at the time viewed art as the foundation of morality and as a way to promote virtues and personal improvement. These theories made the subject of art a natural tool for policy makers and educators to use in achieving their assimilationist goals of turning student "savages" into civilized men and women. Despite such educational regimes for students, however, indigenous ideas about art oftentimes emerged "from below," particularly from well-known art teachers such as Arizona Swayney and Angel DeCora. Colonized through Art explores how American Indian schools taught children to abandon their cultural heritage and produce artificially "native" crafts that were exhibited at local and international fairs. The purchase of these crafts by the general public turned students' work into commodities and schools into factories.  

Art for an Undivided Earth by Jessica L. Horton In Art for an Undivided Earth Jessica L. Horton reveals how the spatial philosophies underlying the American Indian Movement (AIM) were refigured by a generation of artists searching for new places to stand. Upending the assumption that Jimmie Durham, James Luna, Kay WalkingStick, Robert Houle, and others were primarily concerned with identity politics, she joins them in remapping the coordinates of a widely shared yet deeply contested modernity that is defined in great part by the colonization of the Americas. She follows their installations, performances, and paintings across the ocean and back in time, as they retrace the paths of Native diplomats, scholars, performers, and objects in Europe after 1492. Along the way, Horton intervenes in a range of theories about global modernisms, Native American sovereignty, racial difference, archival logic, artistic itinerancy, and new materialisms. Writing in creative dialogue with contemporary artists, she builds a picture of a spatially, temporally, and materially interconnected world--an undivided earth.

Through a Native Lens by Nicole Strathman What is American Indian photography? At the turn of the twentieth century, Edward Curtis began creating romantic images of American Indians, and his works--along with pictures by other non-Native photographers--came to define the field. Yet beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, American Indians themselves started using cameras to record their daily activities and to memorialize tribal members. Through a Native Lens offers a refreshing, new perspective by highlighting the active contributions of North American Indians, both as patrons who commissioned portraits and as photographers who created collections. In this richly illustrated volume, Nicole Dawn Strathman explores how indigenous peoples throughout the United States and Canada appropriated the art of photography and integrated it into their lifeways. The photographs she analyzes date to the first one hundred years of the medium, between 1840 and 1940. To account for Native activity both in front of and behind the camera, the author divides her survey into two parts. Part I focuses on Native participants, including such public figures as Sarah Winnemucca and Red Cloud, who fashioned themselves in deliberate ways for their portraits. Part II examines Native professional, semiprofessional, and amateur photographers. Drawing from tribal and state archives, libraries, museums, and individual collections, Through a Native Lens features photographs--including some never before published--that range from formal portraits to casual snapshots. The images represent multiple tribal communities across Native North America, including the Inland Tlingit, Northern Paiute, and Kiowa. Moving beyond studies of Native Americans as photographic subjects, this groundbreaking book demonstrates how indigenous peoples took control of their own images and distinguished themselves as pioneers of photography.  

Indigenous Archaeologies: Decolonizing Theory and Practice by Claire Smith (Editor); H. Martin Wobst (Editor); H. Martin Wobst (Editor) With case studies from North America to Australia and South Africa and covering topics from archaeological ethics to the repatriation of human remains, this book charts the development of a new form of archaeology that is informed by indigenous values and agendas. This involves fundamental changes in archaeological theory and practice as well as substantive changes in the power relations between archaeologists and indigenous peoples. Questions concerning the development of ethical archaeological practices are at the heart of this process.

Intellectual Property, Indigenous People and Their Knowledge by Peter Drahos After colonization, indigenous people faced an extractive property rights regime for both their land and knowledge. This book outlines that regime, and how the symbolic function of international intellectual property continues today to assist states to enclose indigenous peoples' knowledge. Drawing on more than 200 interviews, Peter Drahos examines the response of indigenous people to the colonizer's non-developmental property rights. The case studies reveal how they have adapted to the state's extractive order through a process of regulatory bricolage. In order to create a new developmental future for themselves, indigenous developmental networks have been forged - high trust networks that include partnerships with science. Intellectual Property, Indigenous People and their Knowledge argues for a developmental intellectual property order for indigenous people based on a combination of simple rules, principles and a process of regulatory convening.

Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies by Chris Andersen (Editor); Jean M. O'Brien (Editor) Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies is a synthesis of changes and innovations in methodologies in Indigenous Studies, focusing on sources over a broad chronological and geographical range. Written by a group of highly respected Indigenous Studies scholars from across an array of disciplines, this collection offers insight into the methodological approaches contributors take to research, and how these methods have developed in recent years. The book has a two-part structure that looks, firstly, at the theoretical and disciplinary movement of Indigenous Studies within history, literature, anthropology, and the social sciences. Chapters in this section reveal that, while engaging with other disciplines, Indigenous Studies has forged its own intellectual path by borrowing and innovating from other fields. In part two, the book examines the many different areas with which sources for indigenous history have been engaged, including the importance of family, gender, feminism, and sexuality, as well as various elements of expressive culture such as material culture, literature, and museums. Together, the chapters offer readers an overview of the dynamic state of the field in Indigenous Studies. This book shines a spotlight on the ways in which scholarship is transforming Indigenous Studies in methodologically innovative and exciting ways, and will be essential reading for students and scholars in the field.  

First Peoples by Jodi A. Byrd Examines how OC IndiannessOCO has propagated U.S. conceptions of empire