What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1039016
8 WHAT'S UP! OCTOBER 14-20, 2018 Through Living Eyes JOCELYN MURPHY NWA Democrat-Gazette E ven before one steps through the doors to the new temporary exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum, art is already on display, drawing the viewer in to the ongoing conversation of what exactly constitutes American art. "Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now" challenges the viewer to consider the often neglected perspective of Indigenous peoples as part of the American experience, and further, what exactly modern Native art can be in that context. "One of [the important things about the exhibition] is this insistence and, just, persistent voice that Native people are stuck in the past," co-curator Mindy Besaw told What's Up! in a previous interview. "They're very much alive, dealing with the same issues many of us are dealing with today. So [it's] that show of, 'We're here and this is our voice.' So how can we expand our notions of contemporary art when we look at contemporary art and issues through the Native lens?" Some 80 pieces representing more than 40 Native communities across Canada and the United States — from paintings and sculptures to textiles and performance art — come together for a more inclusive survey of American art than is often presented in a museum setting. What's more, many of the representations of Native peoples in contemporary culture are often built around myths and stereotypes, or are a romanticizing of "the proud American Indian." These contemporary artists challenge and critique those conventions while reclaiming authorship of their own histories in this country. "If the landscape in this work feels very familiar, that is because it's based on another beloved landscape painter," Besaw says of one of the large paintings in the exhibition. In his work "History Is Painted by the Victors," Kent Monkman reimagines one of Hudson River School artist Albert Bierstadt's sweeping American landscapes. Monkman Exhibit expands Indigenous art beyond stereotypes Image Courtesy Crystal Bridges Brian Jungen's series of masks, including "Prototype for New Understanding #2," on display during the exhibition, call attention to the ways images in popular culture shape an understanding of Indigenous peoples. Image Courtesy Crystal Bridges Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's "Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)" uses humor to examine the issues of stereotypes, as well as relationships to land and the Native peoples' removal from it. COVER STORY