National Museum of the American Indian

Jeffrey Gibson’s POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT is a newly commissioned immersive installation that will occupy MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 gallery and follows Gibson’s highly celebrated United States representation at the 60th edition of La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition opens on November 3.

Currently Native American artist, Jeffrey Gibson, is the first to be honored by an exhibition in the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. We first encountered him when he exhibited with Camillo Alvarez in his Boston based Samson Gallery. At the time I was researching and curating Native American art. We met for a studio visit in 2006.

Presenting over 150 photographs of, by, and for Indigenous people, “In Our Hands” welcomes all to see through the lens held by Native photographers.

The Rose Art Museum named Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (b. 1954, Cheyenne/Arapaho) its 2021-2022 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence. Since 2002, the Perlmutter Residency has been part of the Rose Art Museum’s longstanding tradition of promoting artists of extraordinary talent whose works address contemporary issues of vital urgency.

During a recent road trip we visited museums in Montreal, Ottowa and Toronto. We noted different strategies to intergate First Nations artists into special exhibitions and permanent collection galleries. A third of the exhibition space of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto features First Nations artists. With an unfavorable comparison only a handful of American museums have a commitment to feature Native American art and culture.

To launch A New Vision for the Berkshire Museum it plans to sell 40 key works for some $60 miillion. That's a pot of gold but comes at a terrible cost to the heritage, legacy and cultural branding of the Berkshires. Van Shiields and the museum board insist that there is no other option. That disrespect raises questions regarding stewardship of the 40,000 works in the collection including 2,395 fine art pieces.

When the Berkshire Museum announced plans to focus on science and history there was initial euphoria. To reach a goal of $60 millon, $20 for renoivation, and $40 million for endowment it will sell 40 works of art including two paintings by Norman Rockwell which the artist gave to the museum and his Berkshire neighbors. In so doing it violates deaccession restrictions for art museums. In a shuffle Van Shields, the director of BM, has stated that he does not run an art musuem and is not bound by ethical guidelines. That may change as coverage evolves from local to national news.

The exhibition: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of 'Centerbeam,' A Performative Sculpture by CAVS, can be seen at ZKM, Karlsruhe/Germany, until October 1st. The museum is also presenting in an adjacent gallery Aldo Tambellini’s, 'Black Matters.' He was one of the 21 artists, who participated in the spectacular, collaborative and participatory outdoor sculpture.

The Modern Spirit: The Arts of George Morrison is a five venue traveling exhibition which is on view at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona through January 12. Morrison (1919-2000) left the Chippewa people of Lake Superior to study at the Arts Student League in 1943. He enjoyed success in New York with numerous gallery and national museum exhibitions. In 1970 he returned to teach in Minnesota where he primarily lived and worked for the remainder of his life. As an abstract artist Morrison defies narrow definitions of American Indian Art. His life and work did much to expand that.

When the NMAI was established in 1989 with the passage of the National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAI Act), it included the first U.S. repatriation legislation that provided for the return of Native American human remains and certain cultural items in the collections. Since the museum's inception, one of the highest priorities has been the return of Native American human remains and their associated funerary items back to their communities of origin.

On Wednesday, June 20, the United States Patent and Trademark Office cancelled the trademark registration for the Washington Redskins, because Federal trademark law does not permit registration of trademarks that may “disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.” We post remarks by Kevin Gover the director of the National Museum of the American Indian.

As research for the exhibition Native New Yorkers we interviewed artists, a curator and collector. We found that questions led every deeper into a richly diverse and little understood field of contemporary art. The article is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

In 2006 as part of the research for the exhibition Native New Yorkers at New England School of Art & Design/ I visited the studio of Mario Martinez. On a park bench in Union Square we discussed his Yaqui heritage. This article was originally posted on Maverick Arts Magazine .

Currently on view at the ICA is an installation of work by Jeffrey Gibson. This is a reposting from Maverick Arts of a 2006 studio visit with the artist. It was research for the Suffok University exhibition Native New Yorkers.

All of the films have a direct connection to Native American or Indigenous people and their culture. All films screened at the festival have either been made by Native American or Indigenous filmmakers, actors, writers, producers, and/or technical experts from around the world.

This well organized and insightful book is designed to get parents and educators up to speed when visiting exhibitions and museums. In an interesting and simple format it asks all the right questions and provides clear and simple answers about world art. The intention is to initiate meaningful dialogues with children.

This is a thought provoking collection of essays, many produced for exhibition catalogues by Paul Chaat Smith an associate curator of the National Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

The enormous and ambitious retrospective "Fritz Scholder: Indian/ not Indian" is being presented in two parts simultaneously by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington, D.C. and at The George Gustav Heye Center in lower Manhattan. Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) exploited Native imagery but largely deined his heritage as one quarter Indian (Luiseno, a California mission tribe). The NMAI has taken on a complex and controversial project.

The turkeys in our backyard are lean and tough compared to the piles of butterballs at the Big Y. A time to reflect on the meaning of Thanksgiving.

The most remarkable experience of the recent visit to Italy was the exhibition "Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art" at the Palazzo Fortuny. Also the final installement of reflections on the Venice Biennale 2007.

Now in its fifth season in Hudson New York the Nicole Fiacco gallery was founded with a mandate to present Native American art.