Native American Arts Movement
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Native American Arts Movement The Native American Arts Movement emerged in the late 20th century as a transnational surge of Indigenous visual, performance, and craft practices linked to American Indian Movement, Red Power, Indigenous rights campaigns and institutional advocacy at sites such as the Smithsonian Institution, Institute of American Indian Arts, and the Heard Museum. Artists associated with the movement engaged traditions from the Pueblo peoples, Navajo Nation, Lakota people, Haida people, Ojibwe people, Inuit, and Métis communities while responding to exhibitions at venues like the Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Canada, and initiatives by the National Endowment for the Arts. The movement catalyzed new markets, pedagogy, and policy activism involving the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and curatorial programs at the National Museum of the American Indian.
Introduction
The period saw figures such as Allan Houser, R.C. Gorman, Oscar Howe, Fritz Scholder, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith reframe Indigenous painting, sculpture, and printmaking alongside institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, Walker Art Center, Brooklyn Museum, Autry Museum of the American West, and the Heard Museum. Activist organizations like the American Indian Movement and legal advocates like the Native American Rights Fund intersected with cultural initiatives at the Institute of American Indian Arts and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to secure exhibition opportunities and educational programs. The movement negotiated representation at art fairs and commercial galleries such as Findlay Galleries and provincial venues like the Banff Centre and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
Historical Origins and Influences
Roots trace to earlier practitioners including Maria Martinez, Pablita Velarde, George Morrison, Bill Reid, Norval Morrisseau, and craft revivals led by community elders like Mabel McKay. The rise paralleled political events including protests at Alcatraz Island and policy shifts after the Occupation of Wounded Knee (1973), linking art to sovereignty debates influenced by legal cases heard through the Indian Claims Commission and later work by the National Congress of American Indians. Colonial encounters, missionary histories in regions like Alberta and New Mexico, and cross-cultural exchanges with collectors at the Smithsonian Institution and dealers associated with Findlay Galleries also shaped aesthetics and market routes.
Key Artists and Collective Organizations
Prominent artists include T.C. Cannon, Kay WalkingStick, Kay WalkingStick, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Fritz Scholder, Allan Houser, R.C. Gorman, Oscar Howe, George Morrison, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Rick Bartow, Edgar Heap of Birds, Rebecca Belmore, Bunky Echo‑Hawk, Linda Lomahaftewa, Helen Hardin, Annie Pootoogook, Kenojuak Ashevak, Norval Morrisseau, and Bill Reid. Collectives and institutions played organizing roles: the Institute of American Indian Arts, American Indian Movement, Indian Arts and Crafts Board, National Museum of the American Indian, Heard Museum, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Canadian Museum of History, and artist-run spaces tied to the Banff Centre and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
Themes, Styles, and Mediums
Artists blended techniques from Pueblo pottery traditions exemplified by Maria Martinez with modernist approaches seen in work by George Morrison and Oscar Howe, while carvers like Bill Reid and printmakers like Norval Morrisseau reinterpreted ancestral pictographs. Sculpture by Allan Houser and mixed-media interventions by Edgar Heap of Birds, Nicholas Galanin, and Jeffrey Gibson engaged materials from reservation economies and urban contexts addressed in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Walker Art Center. Themes included land rights invoked through imagery linked to the Lakota people and Navajo Nation, memorialization related to events like the Occupation of Alcatraz Island, and narratives of cultural continuity promoted via residency programs at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Banff Centre.
Impact on Indigenous Cultural Revitalization
The movement reinforced language, craft, and ceremonial continuity through programs supported by institutions such as the First People's Cultural Council, National Museum of the American Indian, and regional galleries including the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Educational innovations at the Institute of American Indian Arts produced generations of artists who combined community knowledge with studio practices taught by visiting figures linked to the Smithsonian Institution and the National Endowment for the Arts. Cultural revitalization connected to legal and political advocacy by organizations like the Native American Rights Fund and American Indian Movement, strengthening claims to repatriation informed by museological debates at the Smithsonian Institution and repatriation frameworks influenced by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
Reception, Criticism, and Controversies
Critical reception varied: museums such as the National Museum of the American Indian and commercial galleries like Findlay Galleries staged retrospectives, while debates emerged over authenticity and commodification raised in writing by curators at the Heard Museum and critics associated with the Museum of Modern Art and academic programs at institutions like Gerald McMaster's curatorial initiatives. Controversies involved cultural appropriation disputes with non-Indigenous artists, repatriation conflicts involving collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the Canadian Museum of History, and policy critiques confronting the Indian Arts and Crafts Board's certification processes.
Legacy and Contemporary Developments
Contemporary Indigenous practitioners such as Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Marie Watt, Rebecca Belmore, Kay WalkingStick, Bunky Echo‑Hawk, Rick Bartow, and Annie Pootoogook build on the movement's legacy in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, and the National Museum of the American Indian. Support networks include the Institute of American Indian Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, First People's Cultural Council, and artist residencies at the Banff Centre and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Ongoing dialogues about restitution, curatorial sovereignty driven by figures like Gerald McMaster, and collaborations with institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution continue to shape Indigenous cultural futures.
Category:Indigenous art movements