MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- On June 2, 2019, the
Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) will present the first major thematic exhibition to explore the artistic achievements of Native women. The exhibition, which will travel nationally, includes more than 115 works dating from ancient times to the present and made in a variety of media, including sculpture, video and digital arts, photography, textiles, and decorative arts. Drawn from Mia’s permanent collection and loans from more than 30 institutions and private collections, the works are from communities representing all regions of Native North America. “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists,” presented by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, is organized by Jill Ahlberg Yohe, PhD, associate curator of Native American Art at Mia, and Teri Greeves, an independent curator and member of the Kiowa Nation. An advisory panel of Native women artists and Native and non-Native scholars has provided insights from a range of nations.
An important symposium will inaugurate the exhibition on Saturday, June 1, 1–4pm. “Hearts of Our People: The Legacy, Relationships & Power of Native Women Artists” will feature three panels of artists and scholars who are each exploring themes of the exhibition. Legacy, with Jolene Rickard, Janet Catherine Berlo, DY Begay, and Jill Ahlberg Yohe as moderator, will reveal how the transmission of techniques, iconography, and historical narratives, and an understanding of the artist’s role as culture bearer link contemporary artists with their ancestors. Relationships, with Anita Fields, Carla Hemlock, Ruth Phillips, and Dakota Hoska as moderator, will discuss the Native concept of “kincentricity,” which envisions an interconnection among people, animals, plants, and the elements in a world view that prompts greater accountability for all beings. Power, with Heather Ahtone, America Meredith, Katie Bunn Marcuse, and Teri Greeves as moderator, will explore how Native art frequently references the specific agency exercised by women in their communities, not only as diplomats, but also as artists, mothers, and culture bearers. To register, call 612.870.6323
“Hearts of Our People” will elucidate the traditional role of Native women artists in serving the cultural, economic, diplomatic, and domestic needs of their communities, while also going beyond the longstanding convention of treating these artworks as unattributed representations of entire cultures. The contemporary works on view, in particular, will highlight the intentionality of the individual artist and demonstrate how the artist has been influenced by the preceding generations.
“Native women artists have rarely been recognized as individuals, as innovators, and as artists by the mainstream art world,” said co-curator Jill Ahlberg Yohe. “’Hearts of Our People’ acts as a corrective to an art history that has overlooked countless Native women artists because these women were and are ‘untrained’ in a canonical sense. Their work has been circumscribed by a misunderstanding that Native ‘craft’ is static with little to no individual artistic latitude or ingenuity.”
Visitors will gain an appreciation of the various ways in which contemporary Native women artists honor Native women artists of the past and respond to their predecessors’ work. For example, a Pueblo ceramic olla (rounded pot) from the 1940s by the renowned artist Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1887–1980) will be presented alongside a 1985 Chevy El Camino, titled Maria (2014), customized in the black-on-black painting style of Martinez by the contemporary artist Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo, b. 1983).
During each step of the curatorial process, the curators have worked closely with an Exhibition Advisory Board, established to provide knowledge and insights from a wide range of nations. The panel comprises 21 Native and non-Native scholars from across North America, as well as Native artists, some of whose work will be included in the exhibition and accompanying catalogue. The committee has worked collaboratively to develop the exhibition’s major themes and advise on selected objects, as well as determine the structure and content of the catalogue, programming, and community outreach activities.
“The Exhibition Advisory Board was an essential part of our curatorial process.” said Teri Greeves, co-curator of the exhibition. “Just as many Native nations use consensus to make important decisions, we wanted each phase of the exhibition planning and development to be guided by our advisory board. This radically different methodology means many voices, instead of just one or two individuals in the role of curator, shaped the exhibition.”
Following its debut at Mia, “Hearts of Our People” will travel to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville in September 2019, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, a compilation of essays, personal reflections, and poems by 20 members of the Exhibition Advisory Board and other leading scholars and artists in the field. It will be available for purchase from The Store at Mia.
