Review Essay: Indigenous Motivations: Recent Acquisitions from the National Museum of the American Indian. George Gustav Heye Centre, National Museum of the American Indian. July 22, 2006-June 10, 2007.
Dasha Chapman, Mina Ellison, Anne Kwiatt, Tate LeFevre, Claire Nicholas, Sandra Rozental, Susanne Sabolcsi-Boros, April Strickland, and Sabra Thorner
Introduction
Indigenous Motivations: Recent Acquisitions from the National Museum of the American Indian was a showcase of more than 250 works of traditional clothing and masks, modern textile designs, sculptures, paintings and works of art on paper acquired since 1990 by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).[1] Indigenous Motivations aimed to emphasize the fluidity of American Indian traditions as they have been continuously drawn upon to inform contemporary indigenous practices and productions. Curators Bruce Bernstein, Cynthia L. Chavez and Ann McMullen provided a wide-ranging view of American Indian arts and crafts: the show contained “more than beads and feathers” (West 2006:7). The ‘motivations’ alluded to in the exhibition’s title referred to the multiple sources of inspiration behind contemporary indigenous artists’ work. The exhibition categorized these motivations as stemming from three sources: practices of tradition, innovation and art.
Figure 1: The Indigenous Motivations website.
As its subtitle indicates, this was an exhibition curated around objects, rather than around particular tribal or geographic groups. Since 1990, when the Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian became part of the Smithsonian, the museum has acquired some 15,000 objects, including more than 6,200 pieces transferred from the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board Collection belonging to the Department of the Interior. The exhibition offered viewers access to a panoply of pieces, all made after 1950, ranging from Aymara hats and miniature Kwakwaka’wakw totem poles to Hopi wastebaskets and Navajo textile patterns designed for Sears Roebuck. The juxtaposition of these pieces illustrated the dynamic and adaptable character of American Indian arts, and more broadly, American Indian peoples today. These objects varied in region, tribe, artist, and quality, as well as in purpose (objects made for communities’ use and objects made to be sold to non-natives on different markets), but they were woven together by a common narrative thread: the creative coexistence of innovation and tradition.
The openness of the exhibition design permitted the visitor’s movement along any number of potential paths: from case to case, wall-art to sculpture and mixed media objects, jewelry to clothing. In effect, the sequencing of the exhibition experience was left for the visitor to construct. Dividing the long exhibition space into thirds were three freestanding walls covered in a mélange of text and images, each conceptually centered around either tradition, innovation, or art. From just a little time spent with the extensive quotations it was possible to glean the message of this exhibit: tradition is continuously re-invented through innovation, but this refashioning is a long-practiced method of survival to maintain community vitality. As is stated on the “Tradition” wall text, “Nothing Stays the Same.”
Tradition
The pieces in the “Tradition” section, the first of the exhibition, were described as “works that resonate with their [the artists] family and community.” These are objects that were created for use in everyday contexts, such as baskets, clothing, hats and moccasins. Here we were introduced to the ways in which Indigenous Motivations conceived of ‘tradition’. It is something alive and transformative, and it is an indigenous convention to innovate through cultural and artistic practice:
“The only way tradition can be carried on is to keep inventing new things.” Robert Davidson (Haida), ca. 1990.
“In order for traditions to remain traditional, they must always change and adapt to present ways. Otherwise, they become part of dead cultures.” Ronald Senungetuk (Inupiaq), 2005.
“Our art and our culture and our language have always been changing. Innovation is the second-oldest form of tradition.” Yaya (Charles Peter Heit) (Gitxsan), 2005.
Throughout this exhibition there were contradictory uses of the word tradition. On the one hand, the plural form, traditions, describes historically and geographically specific practices and productions. On the other, tradition was, to a certain extent, evacuated of this material and historical grounding, and replaced with an evocation of a capacity for dynamism. While this move clearly indicated a rejection of the characterization of native cultures as static or ‘dead’, the emphasis on innovation as the “second-oldest form of tradition” left one wondering what the original form of tradition is or was. The paradox of tradition in current debates over indigeneity emerged clearly in this exhibition: how to erase the derogatory connotations of the term, the condescending residue of grossly imbalanced relationships of power sedimented over time, while at the same time claiming that Native people hold on to their traditions (implying that others do not, or at least not to the same extent?), and that this is an essential aspect of their “native” identity. Continue reading ‘Review Essay: Indigenous Motivations’
