Advancing American Indian Art
A Land North: Works from the Heard Museum Collection
This exhibition is a presentation of pieces from the Heard Museum’s permanent holdings of Indigenous Alaskan and Canadian First Nations art. A Land North celebrates the complexities of these cultures and highlights the diverse representation of artworks in the Heard Collection. Featuring more than 100 years of objects, starting at 1900, the exhibition spotlights pieces in mediums including works on paper, textiles, basketry, scrimshaw engraving, jewelry, and sculpture. Many of the works, such as the ivory engravings created by Angokwazhuk (Happy Jack) and baleen basketry by Robert James and Carl Taalak, were produced specifically for tourist consumption, whereas the textiles of Victoria Mamnguqsualuk and the prints of Simon Tookoome were produced as narrative devices. Themes explored by the artists include notions of shamanism and the interconnectedness of the metaphysical and the land, illuminating transformation, and spiritual practices. Other works depict daily life and the flora and fauna of Alaska and Canada. Each of these works elucidates the cultural continuum of Indigenous peoples in these territories. Artists: Angokwazhuk (Happy Jack) Diane Hallauk Peter Lind Victoria Mamnguqsualuk Andrew Oenga James Omnik David Rubin Piqtoukun Simon Tookoome Andrew Tooyak Marion Tuu’luq Denise Wallace
Curated by Erin Joyce, Fine Arts Curator, and Diana Pardue, Chief Curator
A Land North: Works from the Heard Museum Collection
October 29, 2018 - February 3, 2019
This exhibition is a presentation of pieces from the Heard Museum’s permanent holdings of Indigenous Alaskan and Canadian First Nations art. A Land North celebrates the complexities of these cultures and highlights the diverse representation of artworks in the Heard Collection. Featuring more than 100 years of objects, starting at 1900, the exhibition spotlights pieces ...
Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit
October 29, 2018 - February 3, 2019
Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit explores the surprising and little-known story of how Inuit people and culture inspired one of the 20th century’s most influential artists, Henri Matisse. Included in the exhibition are works by Matisse that have not been publicly shown in the United States, and reunited dozens of stunning Yup’ik (Alaskan ...
Awa Tsireh: Pueblo Painter and Metalsmith
November 3, 2017 - January 6, 2019
This exhibit explores the paintings and metalworks of San Ildefonso artist Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal). Born at San Ildefonso Pueblo in 1898, Awa Tsireh began his painting career in 1917 and by the early 1920s his work was exhibited nationally. Although he received accolades for his paintings throughout his lifetime, less is known about Awa ...
Cheyenne Randall: The Mural Project
February 2, 2018 - January 1, 2019
Cheyenne River Sioux artist, Cheyenne Randall, b. 1978, investigates identity and the idea of celebrity obsession and apotheosis in his work. Working in digital photography, Photoshop, paint, and wheat paste installation, the artist delves into constructed notions of individuality and the semiotics of representation, while concurrently questioning subcultural practices such as tattooing and graffiti, examining ...
Remembering Our Indian School Days: The Boarding School Experience
November 18, 2000 - October 29, 2018
Few people realize that American Indians were forced by the federal government to attend residential boarding schools located hundreds of miles from home. This powerful exhibit immerses visitors into the story, which draws on first-person recollections, memorabilia and the writings and art of four generations of Indian school alumni.
It’s Your Turn: A HOME Studio
May 4, 2018 - October 7, 2018
Home is the center of life for Native peoples in the Southwest. Explore the many meanings of home and how it comes to life in clay, pigment, plants, fiber, wood, and metal by the people whose art and expression are reflections of the landscapes in which they live. This hands-on interactive exhibition space invites the ...
Dear Listener: Works by Nicholas Galanin
May 4, 2018 - September 3, 2018
Dear Listener: Works by Nicholas Galanin is a mid-career retrospective of contemporary Native Alaskan artist, Nicholas Galanin. Galanin, b. 1979 in Sitka, Alaska, is of mixed Tlingit-Unangax and non-Native ancestry. His approach to making art is conceptual, thematically addressing pertinent issues of American Indian representation and cultural critique. Galanin takes a multidisciplinary approach to art-making; his ...
Symmetry in Stone: The Jewelry of Richard I. Chavez
February 2, 2018 - August 5, 2018
For the first time in his more than 40-year career, Richard Chavez’s jewelry is featured in a retrospective exhibition. Since his early years of jewelry design and execution, Chavez has continued to painstakingly make each item by hand. An artist who enjoys designing, Chavez places an emphasis on stone selection, placement and presentation. Now, some ...
Of God and Mortal Men: Masterworks by T.C. Cannon from the Nancy and Richard Bloch Collection
October 7, 2017 - April 15, 2018
The paintings by T.C. Cannon that comprise the Bloch Collection represent the finest examples by a multifaceted artist whose voice and talent resonate and inspire nearly forty years after his untimely passing. The major canvases in the Collection speak to multiple themes—his early mastery of color in Man I’d Like to Have that Pinto Pony; ...
Over the Edge: Fred Harvey at the Grand Canyon and in the Great Southwest
April 9, 2016 - January 7, 2018
Deepen your knowledge of the Grand Canyon by making this exhibit your first stop on the way! The Santa Fe Railway and its concessionaire, the Fred Harvey Company, were masters at creating a vision of the Southwest. Jointly, their ephemeral publications promoting the merits of the “Indian Southwest” number in the tens of thousands. Their ...
