Migrations: New Directions in Native American Art

The University of New Mexico's Tamarind Institute is a world-renowned center for fine art lithography dedicated to training master printers and providing a professional studio for artists. In Migrations, Tamarind director Marjorie Devon has compiled the work of six Native American artists, each of whom collaborated with professional printers at Tamarind and at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton, Oregon, to create prints. These artists were selected because they engage in contemporary art rather than what is traditionally considered "Native American art." Artists Steven Deo (Creek/Euchee), Tom Jones (Ho Chunk), Larry McNeil (Tlingit/Nisgaa), Ryan Lee Smith (Cherokee), Star Wallowing Bull (Chippewa/Arapaho), and Marie Watt (Seneca) represent a wide spectrum of Native American cultures and experiences.

In addition to the art, essays by Jo Ortel, Lucy Lippard, Kathleen Howe, and Gerald McMaster contribute expert analyses of Native American art. Ortel, an associate professor of art history at Beloit College, defines "Migrations" as it applies to this project. Lippard is an art critic and author whose essay discusses the cultural baggage forced upon the American Indian. As director of the Pomona College Museum of Art and professor of art history, Howe offers an overview of Tamarind Institute's projects with indigenous peoples. A Plains Cree artist, McMaster's essay details the history of Crow's Shadow Institute on Oregon's Umatilla Reservation. A traveling exhibition of the art contained here, also entitled "Migrations," will begin in 2007, venues to be announced.