Tag Archives: history

Contemporary Pueblo Architecture Honors Ancient Beliefs

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Any visitor to Chaco Canyon National Historial Park (850-1250 CE) makes the journey to appreciate innovative masonry of the Great Houses, the precision of the ancient road system, and the astronomically aligned walls, windows, and kivas. But how do contemporary Pueblo architects incorporate these traditional beliefs in their 21st century projects?

A fascinating, in-depth exhibition, Restorying our Heartplaces: Contemporary Pueblo Architecture – on view at Albuquerque’s Indian Pueblo Cultural Center through December 7, 2025 – explores how modern Indigenous architects incorporate traditional world views into their work.

2023 photo Kivas at Pueblo Bonito,Chaco Canyon by curator Ted Jojola (Islela Pueblo) showing advanced masonry and architectural concepts.

For example, just look at the design of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Resource Center – an organic design, aligned to the four cardinal directions, with extensive use of cedar wood.

1999 plans for the National Museum of the American Indian Resource Center. Courtesy: Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)
Views of the 1999 National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland. Courtesy: Lynn Paxson.

This exhibition coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act – legislation that shifted Native American policy in the United States from assimilation to self-determination. Tribes were now able to initiate and run justice, government, health and education departments of their own – a change that triggered a construction boom for new schools and administrative buildings.

The show opens as an immersive experience in a large, circular gallery that introduces the core belief system and origin story of the Ancient Puebloans. Across a large screen in a vivid animation, the Pueblo people emerge into this world from a previous world. You watch them migrating outward in a spiral – symbols that are reflected across the art, murals, and photographs on the surrounding walls.

Mural by Dominic Aquero (Cochiti) with symbols of Pueblo creation; T-door represents the spiritual passage between two worlds (sky and Earth)

This experience sets the stage for the rest of the exhibition by showing how the stonework and beliefs reflected by the architecture of Ancient Puebloan centers points the way forward for Pueblo architects today.

2022 print by Gerald Dawavandewa (Hopi Cherokee) with T-shaped door for passage between worlds (sky and Earth]

The exhibition describes Ancient Puebloan architectural innovations – passive solar heating, precise window alignment, and masonry approaches. How did the Ancients achieve such precision in their dramatic Chaco and Mesa Verde buildings?

The curators present engineering and survey tools from archaeological excavations and modern survey backpacks side by side – plumb bobs, levels, and measuring devices.

Ancient stone and ceramic plumb bobs (from California and from Hewitt excavation at Rito de los Frijoles, Bandelier). Courtesy: Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Lab of Anthropology.
Modern survey tools: level, tape measure, compass, brass plumb bob, wood, and string. Courtesy: curator Ted Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)

They also add comparisons of selenite used as window panels in Old Acoma’s Sky City (among the longest-inhabited communities in the US) and the contemporary architectural approach to windows in the recently built Acoma museum – a thoughtful reflection of the past

The exhibition directly addresses past HUD housing approaches on tribal lands – pushing suburban-style low-income housing, which moved families away from the traditional Pueblo plaza (the HeartPlace) and provided pitched-roof designs that blunted community cultural practices that utilized traditional Pueblo flat-roof construction.

The curators remind us of the continual upkeep required by adobe construction – a repeated communal task typically undertaken by a community’s women that happened on a regular, cyclical basis.  It’s also a reminder that Pueblo communities view buildings as living presences that evolve – not just concrete objects exist in a “finished” state.

Views of the 2000 campus for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Courtesy: Paul Fragua (Jemez Pueblo)
Views of 2004 building designed by Janet Carpio (Laguna/Isleta Pueblos) for Pueblo of Isleta’s Headstart/Child Care Center.

Wall panels, blueprint books, and architectural models are used to demonstrate the contemporary innovations of Pueblo architects – the Resource Center of the National Museum of the American Indian (1999), the campus of the Institute of Amercian Indian Arts in Santa Fe (2000), and the Headstart Child Care Center for Isleta Pueblo (2004). Both incorporate design elements echoing the spiral migration path, alignment to the cardinal directions, and colors and elements of the Earth.

A huge multimedia interactive theater punctuates the walk-through – an immersive visit to Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum with tribal members and designers explaining the architectural details and how the buildings reflect the landscape and traditional belief systems.

Immersive interactive experience of Acoma’s new Cultural Center and Haa’ku Museum. Courtesy: Anna Seed Productions, Electric Playouse, and UNM ASPIRE.

The exhibition features the work of the Indiginous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi) at UNM and presents dramatic architectural models of the past, present, and future of the community of Nambe Pueblo.

Look through the exhibition in our Flickr album here – a future-forward look at the continuing progression of innovative architectural designs and the next generation of designers and architects respecting and integrating the Pueblo world view with buildings considered to be living, breathing HeartPlaces for the community. 

2023 photo by curatorTed Jojola (Islela Pueblo) North Window View from Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon showing the T-shaped doorway symbolizing passage between worlds

As the curators made clear in their opening-day remarks, a similarly extensive exhibition could explore architectural innovation and spiritualism across Navajo Nation. Let’s hope that happens!

Judith Lowry Retrospective and Her Great Basin Legacy

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She grew up on US military bases all over the world, and was thankful that her parents exposed her to the best museums, art, and culture in every country they resided. As an adult member of the Pit River Tribe, she moved back to her ancestors’ land in California and Nevada’s Great Basin, and began telling stories of her family’s history and modern Indigenous experience.

The Art of Judith Lowry showcases 40 years of this artist’s work in Reno, Nevada at the Nevada Museum of Art through November 16, 2025 – large-scale painting, triptychs, and installations.

Lowry’s 1997 Red Ribbons depicts herself as a light-skinned Native American teen equipped for battle. Courtesy: The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe.

The museum assembled Lowry’s most celebrated work from major collections across the United States, but is also using the occasion to celebrate Lowry’s own (and her husband’s) gift to the museum with a companion installation of The Lowrey and Croul Collection of Native American Art.

Take a look at some at our favorites from both shows in our Flickr album.

The entry of the exhibition shows how Lowry explores her complex family history at the turn of the last century in frontier ranch lands along the California-Nevada border – images of her biracial great-grandparents and a beautifully mystical depiction of her grandmother. Her regal portrait shows her ancestor’s face tatoos coupled with perfect Victorian dress and small references to the tragedies that befell her family – a symbolic approach Lowry adapted from her deep appreciation of Renaissance works by Bellini, da Vinci, and other masters.

Lowry’s 1997 The Good Marriage – her Native American great-grandmother and German-Irish great-grandfather at their Greenville, California ranch. Courtesy: private collection.
Lowry’s 1999/2012 Edna at Honey Lake depicts her biracial grandmother holding one of her many children who did not survive to adulthood.

A case in the center of the gallery presents Lowry’s paintings for her children’s book about her father and uncle’s Indian boarding-school experience, break out, and unauthorized journey back home.

She also presents family photos and representations of her own growing-up with rich stories and excerpts from her family photo albums. The experience of reading personal history, seeing her ancestors’ faces, and looking at the painted details on her epic canvases is a deep, warm experience that allows you to feel like you’re welcomed into Lowry’s complex and loving family.

Lowry’s 1995 triptych Family: Love’s Unbreakable Heaven showing the moment she understood her family’s unique biracial identity while living at an American military base in Germany. Courtesy: The Rockwell Museum, Corning, New York.

Many of the paintings are satiric takes on the pressures facing contemporary Native Americans navigating life in modern American society – startling theatrical juxtapositions in Indian casinos, retail emporiums, and Renaissance altarpieces.

Lowry’s 1996 Shopping – a sales associate shows the Virgin of Guadalupe’s cloak to a pre-Columbian mother and daughter who are shopping for prom. Courtesy: Peabody Essex Museum

Some of the most arresting works allow us to enter a spiritual realm – magical depictions of legends, stories, and lessons that she heard from her dad growing up.  Lowry’s large-scale, dramatic canvases are immersive – letting us enter the world of the girl-power Star Maidens, who who dance across the sky holding baskets of stars and tossing comets.

Lowry’s 2003 Northern Coast panel from the series Weh-Pom and the Star Sisters celebrating female autonomy and strength. Courtesy: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian
Lowry’s 2003 Southern Coast panel from the story of the the Star Sisters holding their own in the sky and rejecting the advances of trickster Coyote Weh-Pom. Courtesy: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian.

Or letting us enjoy the epic, triumphant forces of natural world that led to the environment Lowry now inhabits in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas.

Lowry’s 2001 The Race for Fire showing animal spirits charging to retrieve fire from the mountains after a devastating flood. Courtesy: Maidu Museum and Historic Site, Roseville, California.

But at the end of her retrospective, Lowry presents the ultimate immersive experience – an imagined native Northern California roundhouse where visitors can enter, think, and see mystical images of Lowry’s inspiring female ancestors, tribal story-carriers, and cultural symbols.  Visitors enter quietly and linger respectfully, taking in all the details of the painted walls and dome.  See our short video to see Lowry’s comforting interior.

Lowry’s 2005/2025 mixed-media installation K’um de–go–i-dom (Home Place), an imagined Native California roundhouse covered in snow; built for quiet reflection. Courtesy: private collection

After immersion in this spiritual space, visitors enter a bright contemporary gallery displaying some of the 125 contemporary Indigenous works that Lowry and her husband Brad Croul donated to the Nevada Museum – honoring the accomplishments of the notable artists working in the region in the 1990s. The gallery is filled with art by famed Northern California indigenous artists (inspirations and friends like Harry Fonseca and Jean LeMarr. The gift significantly expands the museum’s indigenous contemporary collection.

It’s also a nice punctuation that the spectacular case of beaded glasswork by Lorena Gorbet also features a treasured piece of Judith’s family history – a beautiful grasshopper-stitch basket made by Judith’s great-aunt Annie Gorbet when she was only fourteen years old. 

1914 red maple and willow Grasshopper Stitch Basket by 14-year-old Annie Gorbet [Yamani Maidu (Mountain Maidu)] (Judith’s great aunt) and undated beaded glass water jug and bottles by Annie’s granddaughter, Lorena Gorbet
Car Crash Necklace by Brian Tripp (Karuk); created from auto reflector fragments, river rock, duct tape, fabric, and string.

Lowry’s work and generous collection provide a loving immersion into family, friends, and spiritual traditions of the Great Basin. It’s a rich tribute to a prolific contemporary artist – one who cares about her culture and committed to ensuring its legacy for her region.

MIAC Connects Diné Textiles to Land and Community

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Building on the groundwork laid in the artist-curated exhibition Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery (opening in St. Louis on March 7), Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture asked five Navajo textile artists, photographers, and scholars to delve into MIAC’s historic collections to tell the story of Diné weavng.

Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles, on view through February 2, 2025, presents historic and contemporary weavings alongside epic photographs of Navajo Nation landscapes to show the connections textile artist have to ancestors, their mentors, the community, the land, and their materials.

Historic Diné weaving with photomural by co-curator Rapheal Begay. Courtesy: the artist.

Appropriately, the story told by over 30 historic textiles is presented in MIAC’s Masterpieces gallery.

The entrance presents a dazzling display – a pictorial blanket woven in the 1890s set against a photomural of co-curator Rapheal Begay’s family sheep corral. It’s a visual testament to the importance of wool, life, and the 27,000 square miles of Navajo Nation. 

The blanket’s creator (unknown today) was an astute observer of the life on the land and translated it all into warp and weft – cow punchers, cattle, boots, birds, and new-fangled railroad cars, that only arrived in Navajo Country around the 1880s. Click here to see the detail.

1885 pictorial blanket created with Germantown wool yarn introduced in the Southwest by the railroads; photomural Navel (Hunter’s Point, AZ) by co-curator Rapheal Begay. Photo courtesy of artist.

Nothing was newer than the railroad, at the time this artist depicted it – a steam-fed invention from the East that would change western life forever, but that also brought a wide array of colorful yarn that could be mixed and matched with vegetal dyes to create new Native designs.

The intertwined history of Diné (“The People” in the Navajo language), textile art, and the land is told through quotes and recollections by the exhibition’s Native collaborators. While examining masterful geometric weaving techniques in 19th-century works, visitors are provided with an historic context – the types of art materials introduced to captives imprisoned at Bosque Redondo after the Long Walk, the images that could be interpreted as a longing for the homeland by the incarcerated, and coded spiritual affirmations.

1850-1860 hand-spun wool child’s (or saddle) blanket with Spider Woman crosses; created with natural cocineal, indigo, and chamisa dye
1880-1897 rug made with Germantown wool yarn, cotton string, and raveled yarn; materials used in weaving at Bosque Redondo era, post-Long Walk.

The participants in the exhibition make sure that viewers also experience how the landscape inspires the work of the past and contemporary Native textile artists. Diné fiber artist Tyrrell Tapaha includes her two-panel dress in which incorporates images of the Utah clouds and mountains that bring her spiritual peace. The masterful wall hanging by Lillie Joe uses the palette of the desert to create a mesmerizing geometric dazzler.

2020 two-panel dress by fiber artist Tyrrell Tapaha with images from Utah landscapes that inspired her; woven from churro, silk, mohair, and marino wool..
Close up of highly detailed 1980s Burntwater wall hanging by Lillie Joe, reflecting colors and patterns of the Navajo Nation landscape.

The curators feature both the photography of co-curator Rapheal Begay and Darby Raymond-Overstreet to allow gallery visitors to experience the awesome beauty of the homeland that inspires artists. Digital artist Raymond-Overstreet overlays geometric textile patterns across his luscious, beautiful landscapes.

2018 digital print Woven Landscape, Shiprock by Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné), overlaying digital landscapes with traditional weavings. Courtesy: the artist

Take a look at some of our favorite works in our Flickr album. And enjoy these historic and contemporary dazzlers.

Detail of 1895 wedge weave blanket made with commercial cotton string and Germantown wool – a dramatic 19th c. weaving innovation. Courtesy: International Museum of Folk Art.
2022 wedge weave by Kevin Aspaas; white and grey wool yarn with indigo dye. Courtesy: private collection.
Detail of dynamic Diné 1960 wool tapestry weave. Courtesy: International Museum of Folk Art

Fronteras del Futuro in the Southwest

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Pow! Wham! What? It’s superheroes, avatars, and mixed-media channeling sci-fi social consciousness in an engaging, colorful, thought-provoking mix in the super-fun Fronteras del Futuro: Art in New Mexico and Beyond exhibition at Albuquerque’s National Hispanic Cultural Center through March 12.

These artists love mixing pop culture images, found objects, and historic iconography to question where we’ve been and where we’re going. Take a look at our favorites in our Flickr album.

Some artists use pop culture to get our attention on deeper issues. The back-to-the-future B-movie poster series by Angel Cabrales prompts reflection on societal attitudes about immigrants and border issues.

2016 B-movie poster by Angel Cabrales to spur discussion on immigration and border issues. Courtesy: the artist.

Gilbert “Magú” Luján’s silkscreen merges the epic scope of Mesoamerican history into a contemporary context. A stylish Aztec couple takes a cross-border journey from Aztlán to Texas in a pre-Columbian-styled low rider.

1983 silkscreen Return to Aztlán by Gilbert “Magú” Luján; a cross-border journey and reflection on pre-Columbian roots and heritage.

One of the most epic achievements is a wall-length, accordian-folded letterpress codex – a collaboration by Enrique Chagoya, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Felicia Rice. Codex Espangliensis features pop-culture superheroes, pre-Columbian imagery, comics, and social declarations to explore New World history from 1492 to the present.

Designed to be read right to left: cover and first pages of Codex Espangliensis from Columbus to the Border Patrol, a hand-colored letterpress accordian-folded book.
Pages from 1999 Codex Espangliensis from Columbus to the Border Patrol, a hand-colored letterpress book by Enrique Chagoya, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Felicia Rice.

Another set of artists rummages around to find tossed-off computer parts, circuit boards, skateboard parts, and other found items to create their works.

Marion Martinez’s 2002 Pierced Heart/Milagro; circuit boards and wood. Courtesy: the artist
Esteban Borjorquez’s 2018 Zena of Urion – a sci-fi creation from discarded items. Courtesy: the artist.

Marion Martinez grew up near Los Alamos National Laboratory, and started visiting its salvage area to find components from which to assemble her artworks – transforming discarded tech into beautiful icons of Northern New Mexican heritage.

Eric J. Garcia’s 2005 lithograph Tamale Man.

Roswell political cartoonist Eric J. Garcia takes another angle on mixing New Mexico’s cultural, culinary, and nuclear history. His Tamale Man series features the transformation of a guy munching a tamale at the first blast at the Trinity Site into a radioactive superhero.

Ryan Singer’s painting series blends his childhood fascination with Star Wars and other futuristic sagas with his Navajo heritage and upbringing.

Ryan Singer’s 2021 acrylic, Rainbow Flavor.

Meet Ehren Kee Natay, a Diné artist, whose work opens the exhibition with a loving tribute to his grandfather, the first Native American to release a commercial record:

Whitney Resurrects American Optimism from Storage

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To get a taste of exuberant optimism, travel back with the Whitney Museum of American Art in At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American Modernism, on view through February 26.

It’s a showcase for art created at the beginning of the 20th century – a time when European experimentation in abstraction, urban skyscrapers and other engineering marvels, Einstein’s breakthroughs, and the success of the women’s suffrage movement made artists optimistic about the future.

The show features work by well-known (and well loved) artists like lyrical abstractionist Georgia O’Keefe (Music, Pink and Blue No.2) and transcendentalist Agnes Pelton (Ahmi in Egypt).

Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1918 oil, Music, Pink and Blue No. 2. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

But the news story here is the Whitney’s interest in pulling work by their contemporaries out of storage to provide a more expansive look at early American modernism. Nearly half of the works on display have not been out of the stacks for more than 30 years!

Look at Albert Bloch’s 1916 Mountain, which hasn’t been shown at The Whitney in 50 years. It’s somewhat shocking when you consider that Bloch was the only American invited to join the ground-breaking Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. It’s fitting that Bloch’s nearly forgotten, expressionist landscape was resurrected and featured as the show’s icon – a traveler on an upward journey toward a town on the hill amidst modernist peaks.

Albert Bloch’s 1916 Mountain.

The Whitney’s also pulled Carl Newman’s 1917 Bathers out of storage for this show and hung it side-by-side with Bloch.

Newman was an Academy-trained artist from Philly, but after getting swept up in the Parisian avant-garde one summer, he tried throwing art conventions out the window. 

Color, rainbows, naughty nudes, pleasure craft – a scandalous and joyous mix!

Carl Newman’s 1917 oil on linen painting, Untitled (Bathers)

And what about another “forgotten” convention-breaker? The vibrant 1926 Street Scene is by Yun Gee, a Chinese immigrant modernist who started his art career in San Francisco, but found more acceptance and exhibition opportunities in Paris. Gee was the only Chinese artist running in European modernist circles, and it’s nice to see his cubist expression of San Francisco’s Chinatown right where it belongs in the Whitney’s pantheon.

Yun Gee’s 1926 oil of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Street Scene. Courtesy: estate of Yun Gee.

Works by some of our modernist favorites are also featured – synchronist master Stanton Macdonald Wright, shape-shifter Arthur Dove, and former Brancusi studio assistant and abstracted design leader, Isamu Noguchi.

Henrietta Shore’s 1923 oil, Trail of Life – a recent acquisition by the Whitney to add Shore to its collection.

The stories and careers go on. The exhibition features artists from the West Coast, artists that fled to Paris and found success there, and some modernists that just couldn’t make a go of it and stopped making art entirely.

Henrietta Shore, the Los Angeles innovator who Edward Weston credits as a great influence on his style, was one who eventually opted out.

It’s a beautiful walk through the early 20th century to meet a new set of painters using abstraction to channel an optimistic future – E.E. Cummings (yes, the poet!), Blanche Lazzell of Provincetown, Aaron Douglas of the Harlem Renaissance, and Pamela Colman Smith of Tarot card fame.

Installation view of great modernists. In vitrine: Pamela Colman Smith’s 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck. Left to right: O’Keeffe’s 1918 Music, Pink and Blue No. 2; Stettheimer’s 1931 Sun; E.E. Cummings’s 1925 Noise Number 13; Macdonald-Wright,’s 1918 Oriental – Synchromy in Blue-Green; Richmond Barthé,’s 1933 African Dancer; Jay Van Everen’s 1924 Abstract Landscape. Photograph by Ron Amstutz.

Here’s a short video by curator Barbara Haskell where she talks about what it was like to find “forgotten” paintings and other stories behind the Whitney’s fascinating modernist reveal:

Scandinavian Folk Dressing Takes a Stand

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Forget about the picturesque fjords and pastoral views reindeer herders that we imagine when we envision Scandinavia. Completely different stories of history, revolution, oppression, and cultural revival are told by the array of colorful, decorative, embellished and loved clothing in Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia, on view at the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe through February 19.

You’re introduced to the iconic folk clothing of three cultures when you enter the exhibition – Sweden, Norway, and Sápmi, the homeland of the indigenous Sami people that stretches across the northern boundaries of Russia and the three other Scandinavian countries.

Detail of mid-19th to early 20th century woman’s dräkt from Sweden’s Delsbo parish in Häsingland historical province.
Young Swedish man’s dräkt, made in 1992 by Birgitta Lördal and Maj-Lis Halvarsson of Häsingland historical province.

But then it’s a deep dive into what each of these colorful creations represent.

The story behind Sweden’s folk costumes (folksdräkt) extends back into the 19th century, when rural peasants lived in a fairly hierarchical society and relied on their church clothes to signify where they ranked on the status ladder. Each community developed its own details and styling. In some communities, women used almanacs to help them keep track of various clothing combinations.

The exhibition displays an array of men’s and women’s country ensembles.

There are also examples of striking, elaborately silk-embroidered shawls that were essential to women’s status dressing.

In the 1800s, a series of economic and agricultural misfortunes caused rural Swedes to leave their communities and either migrate to the United States or to middle-class jobs in the city.

Swedish intellectuals worried that the rural population drain meant that country traditions and craftsmanship would vanish. Around 1900, cultural leaders prompted a craft awareness and revival movement ­– retail shops, showcases for hand-crafted clothing, and national museums.

Detail of woman’s 1834 silk-embroidered linen shawl, a status symbol worn on specified occasions; Leksand parish in Sweden’s Dalarna province.

Today, many Swedes gladly purchase and buy kits to make folksdräkt for festivals, parades, and other events.

The curators have even included items from a new cottage industry – protective garment bags specifically designed to store your folk costume!

In a whimsical touch, the curators have included a contemporary take from artist Heidi Mattsson – the Swedish national costume made from Ikea shopping bags, a cotton nightshirt and napkin, and sodacan pop tops!

And the curators have included several other inventive modern takes on national wear.

Heidi Mattsson’s 2018 Swedish national costume fashioned from napkin, soda can pop tops, cotton nightshirt, and Ikea shopping bags. I
Täpp Lars Arnesson’s 2016 winter dräkt for his young daughter in Malung parish in Sweden’s Dalarna province; blended decorative elements from other parishes.
2017 embroidered baseball cap created in Leksand parish in Sweden’s Dalarna province, using traditional symbols. Private collection.

The story told by Norweigan folk dress is more tightly linked to the long revolutionary fight for independence throughout the 19th century. Rural Norwegian peasants were land owners. To city dwellers laboring under Danish and Swedish domination in the 1800s, rural people epitomized the “independent everyman” who had more control over their personal destinies.

During Norweigans’ century-long fight for independence, political activists began adopting bunader, contemporary clothing inspired by preindustrial rural clothing as a sartorial statement about their desire for freedom. It popped up at youth rallies and dances.

1900 national costume – red bodice with beaded insert and dark skirt – typical of Norway’s Hardanger district, depicted in photo.
Hans Kristiansen Lybeck’s fantasy drakt, worn in Oslo’s National Constitution Day parade in 1906. Courtesy: Vesterheim Norweigan-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa.

In 1903, activist and regional dance expert, Hulda Garborg, outlined a philosophy for nationalized clothing and popularized it.  Everyone’s enthusiasm for and pride in the national costume kept going, even after independence in 1905. Even in the 21st century, it’s a sure-fire tourism draw up in Norway’s fjord country.

Close-up of Reidun Dahle Nuquist’s embroidered red-jacket bunad, made in East Telemark, Norway by a relative in 1960-1963. She wore it for her wedding and throughout her life.
Man’s 2018 bunad by Inger Homme and other artists in Valle in Norway’s Setesdal district; silver, gold, brass jewelry by Hasla AS.

In the Sápmi portion of the exhibition, the clothing and art is mostly contemporary, with a focus on making declarative statement about indigenous rights.

Long an oppressed minority, the Sámi people have been subject to racial injustice, forced relocation of children to boarding schools, and industrialization of their traditional lands north of the Arctic Circle. In many jurisdictions, they were forbidden to wear their traditional garb.

Symbol of Sámi pride: Jenni Laiti’s 2017 gákti creation from Karasjok – in Finnmark, the Norwegian side of Sápmi. Courtesy: the artist.

Around 1970, the Sámi were able to organize and raise public awareness about their status and why they opposed government dam building in Sápmi. Across their land, people began proudly wearing the traditional gákti and other symbols of their culture and engaging in direct political action on issues affecting them.

1966 summer gákti for a Sámi couple – wool tunics embellished with rose-colored ribbons and rickrack; made in Guovdageaidnu in Finnmark (Norwegian side of Sápmi)
Contemporary Sámi design: 2017 ready-to-wear cotton and poly “party outfit” by Stoorstålka (clothing line by Lotta W. Stoor and Per Niila Stålka) of Norrbotten (Swedish side of Sápmi).

The exhibition has posters and artwork proudly proclaiming native rights and identity, including an appropriated Sámi-style Rosie the Riverter image. For the contemporary eye, some of the most exciting clothing in the exhibition are by young Sámi designers and activists – ranging from Sámi-inspired home goods, modern woven designs, and even ready-to-wear party dresses from Sámi clothing lines.

The examples from Sámi makers demonstrate how design and fashion can help to reconnect young people with their ancestors’ heritage that society blotted out.

Jorunn Lokvold’s 2020 Igvu gákti with geometric applique, a style reconstructed in 1995.
Outi Pieski’s 2020 Ladjogahpir, a revival of a headdress symbolic of Sámi women’s resistance; from Utsjoki (Finnish side of Sápmi).

This wonderful exhibition demonstrates exactly how old traditions can be reinvented to gain traction, even in the 21st century. Take a look through our Flickr album.

Resistance and revival continue in the far North. Meet Jenni Laiti, one of the Sámi artists, activists, and change-makers, who introduces you to art-making in the Arctic:

Virtual Museum Events – Julie Mehretu, Craft in Art, Viennese Lettering, and Niki de Saint Phalle

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Kick off April by choosing from many virtual museum events about the latest art shows, women’s history events, and what’s happening here! Here are just a few highlights:

On Tuesday (April 6) at 6pm, meet Julie Mehretu at the Whitney Museum’s annual Annenberg Lecture. Julie will have a conversation with the Whitney’s director about how history, architecture, cities, protest, maps, and geography have influenced her work. Her magnificent mid-career retrospective is a must-see.

Julie Mehretu’s 2003 Transcending: The New International at The Whitney

Also at 6pm, the Skyscraper Museum presents Wright and New York: The Making of America’s Architect – an illustrated talk by Anthony Alofsin on how an early visionary design for a cathedral and skyscraper set the stage for the Wright’s later success.

At 6:30pm, bring your own pint to celebrate National Beer Day in this month’s Tavern Tastings series with Fraunces Tavern Museum and Connecticut’s Keeler Tavern Museum. The gals will tell you everything you ever wanted to learn about beer in 18th century taverns.

Simone Leigh’s 2008 Cupboard VIII in Making Knowing Craft in Art at The Whitney

On Thursday (April 8) at noon, join one of the Whitney’s teaching fellows in Art History from Home: Making Knowing to discuss how four artists use the materials and methods of craft to turn the idea of “fine art” on its head. Examples that you’ll discuss are selected from artworks featured in the Whitney’s expansive, fun exhibition, Making Knowing Craft in Art, 1950 – 2019. You’ll enjoy all of the twists and turns.

At 6:30pm, join Paul Shaw at Poster House for a tour of Viennese Lettering by some of the greats of the Vienna Secession movement. Paul will show examples of innovative lettering on posters, ads, and books and explain how all of this had an impact on artists of the Sixties and Seventies. The lecture is part of a series in honor of Julius Klinger: Posters for a Modern Age, currently on view at Poster House.

Letters on Vienna’s Secessionist Building – hear more at Poster House on Thursday

At 7pm, MoMA PS1 hosts Niki de Saint Phalle and the Art of Tarot to explore tarot’s influence on modern art and why the artist was inspired to create her monumental installation in Tuscany, Tarot Garden.

Niki de Saint Phalle’s life project in Tuscany, Tarot Garden.

There’s a lot more happening this week, so check the complete schedule. Most of the events are free, but it’s always nice to add a thank-you donation.

Museum Update

This week we checked out the new modern ceramics show at the Met, Shapes from Out of Nowhere: Ceramics from the Robert A. Ellison Jr. Collection, which showcases 75 works that are promised gifts to the Met. Among the highlights ­– several works by celebrated ceramicist George Ohr, whose late 19th century works predate midcentury shape, form, and abstraction. Lots of fans present when we visited. 

Rare George Ohr ceramics 1890–1900 in Out of Nowhere at The Met

Kamoinge Workshop Photographers Show NYC in a Different Light

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Anthony Barboza’s 1972 Kamoinge Workshop Portraits and multifold Kamoinge Artist’s Book.

When fourteen photographers decided to get together in 1963 to for regular critiques, history was happening in Harlem, Mississippi, and on the Capitol Mall and life was bursting at the seams in down-and-out neighborhoods all around them.

The collaboration, influence, mutual support, and artistic output of their first 20 years is the story told in Working Together: Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop, an exhibition on view at the Whitney Museum of American through March 28.

Two by Beuford Smith, a 1978 self-portrait and 1972 Wall, Lower East Side.

The show, originally produced by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, shines a light on the work of the workshop’s founders. It’s a master class in black-and-white photography, experimentation, and community spirit. Everyone has their own style and path, all the works you’ll see here provide a window into community and life in New York during the Sixties and Seventies with a different slant than you’ve seen before.

The Kamoinge Workshop artists were keenly aware that they had access to people and events either ignored by mainstream media or at least invisible to it. Plus, they all had keen awareness and appreciation for artistic heroes, like Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and other legendary photographers, and used the workshop to push one another forward – to make art that went beyond basic photojournalism, and use formal composition and other imaginative techniques.

Abstractions in the city –1973 Untitled (Harlem) by Ming Smith and 1966 Shadows by Adger Cowans.

When they began meeting in the Sixties, Herb Randall showed photos of Southern life taken the summer he accompanied the Freedom Riders to Mississippi; Adger Cowans showed his abstracted, from-a-rooftop image of the crowd listening to Malcom X; Herb Randall showed images of Harlem kids cutting up for his camera; James Mannes Jr. showed formally composed portraits evoking African royalty.

Share the excitement that they felt at the time:

The quality of the work and the unlikely prospects of being selected for shows in elite museums or high-end commercial galleries inspired them to get it out there a different way – by issuing portfolios that they donated to museums, libraries, and universities.

C. Daniel Dawson’s 1978 Olaifa and Egypt, taken at The Met

Anthony Barboza’s group portrait of the founding members is the welcome image for the Whitney show. Inside the space, the work is loosely grouped into areas featuring emerging political movements in Harlem, abstraction, experimentation, journeys to Africa and the Caribbean, and cityscapes during a time when New York was going downhill.

Every time we visited, viewers were studying each work closely, somewhat transfixed by each window into the past. Each image has a special twist to it – shadows creating abstractions across bodies or buildings, the unexpected jolt of the pattern of a man’s jacket, or the panorama of life in a fleeting moment on a street in Senegal.

Look at some of our favorites in our Flickr album, and meet each of the artists on the museum’s exhibition page. Click on each artist’s portrait to see some of their work in the exhibition, and listen to them speak about their work on the audio guide.

Meet the artists and listen to what this group meant to them in the Seventies and today:

Next stops on the exhibition tour – the Getty in Los Angeles (June 29 – September 26, 2021) and the Cincinnati Art Museum (February 25 – May 15, 2022).

On Wednesday, March 24, meet Ming Smith in a live online event, discussing the publication of her recent Aperture monograph and the influence of music upon her work.

Weekly Virtual Museum Events – Berlin Neon, Japanese Rap, Master Photographers, and Alice Neel

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Commercial neon in Berlin under discussion at Poster House Monday

This week, NYC museums are offering more than 40 on-line events (mostly free) that will take you to Berlin in the Twenties, the music scene in Tokyo, studios of acclaimed photographers, and an opening at the Met.  See the full list on our virtual events page.

Tonight (Monday, March 22) at 6:30pm, join Poster House and photographer Thomas Rinaldi for Interwar Neon: Commercial Illumination in Weimar-Era Germany to look back on the electric art that flourished alongside the freewheeling nightlife scene for a brief time between the wars.

Dawoud Bey’s Birmingham series at the New Museum.

On Tuesday (March 23) at 4pm, join the New Museum to meet Dawoud Bey, a photography legend (and MacArthur genius) whose moving 2012 tribute, The Birmingham Project, is featured in the acclaimed exhibition, Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America. 

At 7pm, join Japan Society for 333 Contemporaries – Looking for the Next Global Rap Star in Japan, the kickoff to its new on-line series which talks about how US rap music adopted and adapted by the next generation of Japanese artists.

Parlor of the Merchant’s House Museum, New York’s only intact 19th c. home

On Wednesday (March 24) at 6pm, if Monday’s session got you curious, Join the Merchant’s House for 19th Century Domestic Lighting: 100 Years of Change. It will be an in-depth look at the technology behind the historic home’s lighting fixtures from 1835 forward, a time when candles and oil lamps gave way to electric lighting.

Anthony Barboza’s 1972 Kamoinge Workshop portrait of Ming Smith

At 7pm, meet Kamoinge Workshop photographer Ming Smith in a live online event, discussing the publication of her recent Aperture monograph and the influence of music upon her work. Ming’s work features prominently in the current exhibition at The Whitney, Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop. She is the first African-American female photographer to have her work enter MoMA’s collection.

On Thursday (March 25) at 6pm, get your fashion fix at the Museum at FIT with a special program, From Louis Armstrong to Dizzy Gillespie: Jazz and Black Glamour. The pre-recorded program will feature vintage performer Dandy Wellington, a deep-dive into the influence of jazz on 1920s menswear, and a live Q&A with FIT during the YouTube stream.

Alice Neel’s 1978 portrait Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian

At 7pm, join the Met for the online opening of its new exhibition, Alice Neel: People Come First, which features over 100 works by this beloved New York artist, considered one of America’s greatest 20th century portrait painters. You’ll find out all about how an artist who labored for decades in relative obscurity was drawn to document political movements, people, styles, and community in paint.

At 8pm, join MoMA for Virtual Views: Alexander Calder, a Live Q&A in honor if its new exhibition about Calder, MoMA’s founding, and modernism. The event will feature conversation with the artist’s grandson, who leads the Calder Foundation.

There’s a lot more happening, so check the complete schedule. Most of the events are free, but it’s always nice to add a thank-you donation.

Museum Update

1539 box for crossbow bolts made for the Bavarian duke. Value = 6 cows

We’re glad to report that the Met has extended its exhibition on the value of Renaissance art through the end of the 2021!  See it on the way to the Lehman Wing and the Dutch masters exhibition, and read about it (and the cows) in our February post The Met Asks What the Renaissance Thought It Was Worth.

 

Weekly Virtual Museum Events – Broadway Memories, Irish History, French Culinary Getaway, and Black Rock

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Joe Allen’s West 46th Street Broadway institution on Restaurant Row.

This week, NYC museums are offering 45 on-line events (mostly free) on Broadway, St. Patrick’s Day-inspired programs, music, and artist talks…even magic!  See the full list on our virtual events page.

Have you ever wanted to spend time at a Broadway hang-out with all the show people?  Today (March 15) at 5:30pm, drop in on a 2016 interview with the late Joe Allen, whose Restaurant Row spot provided a home since for decades of Broadway stars, fans, actors, dancers, and producers. Hits, flops, feuds, gossip, deals, and more each night at the bar. The New York Public Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center is showing this video for the first time to commemorate a true Broadway original.

Meet MoFAD Tuesday to explore the diverse flavors of Marseilles.

On Tuesday (March 16) at 6pm, travel to abroad with the Museum of Food and Drink in A Taste of Marseille: A Virtual Tour and Tasting with Culinary Backstreets. Enjoy a guided tour of Marseille’s diverse neighborhoods and foods. It’s too late to order the ingredients from MoFAD, but you can still be a fly on the wall for the food prep, and enjoy early evening apéro and Provençal snacks.

Irish servants’ quarters at Merchant’s House.

At 7pm, learn about the women of rock in a special performance and panel at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the Women’s Jazz Festival 2021. Enjoy Black Women in Rock & Roll and meet author Maureen Mahon, DJ Lynnée Denise, and Amythyst Kiah for performances and conversation.

On St. Patrick’s Day (Wednesday) at 6pm, see what working life was like for the first generation of young Irish women to make New York City their home. The Merchant’s House Museum takes you on a virtual historic home tour, In the Footsteps of Bridget Murphy, emphasizing what it took for servants to keep an 18th century townhouse humming and the lady of the house happy.

Installation view of 2015 painting by Kerry James Marshall at New Museum

At 8pm, enjoy a mix of Irish history with a little magic in a special program at the New-York Historical Society – Celtic Magic: Exploring Irish History through Grand Illusion. Illusionists Daniel GreenWolf and Bella GreenWolf will take you on an entertaining, surprising journey from the ancient Celts to Irish immigrants

On Thursday at 4pm, the New Museum continues its series of conversations with artists featured in its exhibition, Grief and Grievance. This week, do not miss acclaimed artist Kerry James Marshall in conversation with New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni.

There’s a lot more happening, so check the complete schedule. Most of the events are free, but it’s always nice to add a thank-you donation.

Museum Updates

Calder’s 1934 sculpture A Universe at MoMA

This week, we were able to do a quick spin around MoMA’s new exhibition, Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start. The new show had a steady flow of visitors, with everyone loving it!  People were taking selfies with the larger sculptures and standing mesmerized by the Snow Flurries mobile dancing with its shadow.

We’re also looking forward this week to the Whitney’s preview of the Julie Mehretu retrospective, opening March 25, and the Met’s opening of the Alice Neel retrospective, opening March 22.