printer friendly version
Exhibit: Pacific Northwest art shines at the NMAI
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
"If you didn't know better you'd think you were in an art museum.
Even though it's in the National Museum of the American Indian, "Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life Along the North Pacific Coast" sure looks like an art show. Its mood is one of opulence. It includes 400 objects. All of them are eye-catchers. Most of them are old.
The new museum, as it keeps insisting, is not a gallery for art, it's a place about Indians, of, for and by them. To make that point explicit, and to let the viewer feel the grain of modern Indian life, rougher exhibitions elsewhere in the building offer baseball caps, casino chips and the like, but there's none of that stuff here. Instead, we're shown a Tsimshian mask carved 200 years ago whose freckling of woodworm holes lets us see how old it is. A huge canoe-shaped feasting bowl (Heiltsuk, 1860) still shines from the fish oil that it once contained. That 16-foot harpoon is a weapon smoothed by years of use. This show has a patina. It's got the dignity of age.
While historians of the Renaissance need not be Italian to discourse on Leonardo, this new museum feels that one had better possess Indian blood to speak of Indianness."
Get the Story:
At the Indian Museum, Evidence of Abundance
(The Washington Post 2/7)
Username:
indianz@indianz.com, Password:
indianz
If You're Planning a Visit (The Washington Post 2/7)
Relevant Links:
National Museum of the American Indian -
http://www.nmai.si.edu
Related Stories:
African-American Museum to be built on National
Mall (1/31)
Column: NMAI cafe
offers history, health lesson (11/03)
Food Review: NMAI cafe offers plenty of
delights (10/21)
Happy Birthday! NMAI
celebrates first year (09/21)
Youth
Review: NMAI powwow a learning opportunity (08/18)
NMAI powwow attracts big crowd in Washington
(8/16)
NMAI kicks off three-day powwow
in Washington (8/12)
Native artist
completes intensive work at NMAI (06/13)
Review: NMAI film 'contrived' and unmemorable
(04/12)
NMAI receives singer's 'YMCA' famed
gold record (01/13)
NMAI on track to see
4.2M visitors in first year (11/23)
The
Nation: NMAI viewed as a 'starting point' (10/22)
Crow horses helped NMAI and Secret Service in DC
(10/21)
Opinion: NMAI a testament to
power of Natives (10/11)
NMAI not the
only place to enjoy Native art in DC (10/01)
University adds museum track to Native program
(9/30)
Tim Giago: I'm not a racist and I
haven't seen NMAI yet (9/29)
Opinion:
Indian museum shows us 'who we destroyed' (9/29)
Editorial: Indian museum needed in the West too
(9/29)
NMAI survives big opening week in
Washington (9/28)
Yellow Bird: First
visit to NMAI proves exciting (9/28)
Bad
Eagle: Not all 'Indians' belong in museum (9/28)
Column: Museum reflects change of attitudes
(9/28)
Editorial: First Americans
finally get due respect (9/28)
Jodi
Rave: Mixed emotions surround NMAI opening (9/27)
Navajo Nation feels left out of NMAI festivities
(9/27)
President of Peru says Native
movement growing (9/27)
Mark Trahant:
NMAI must change the story (9/27)
Pember: Opening of NMAI was a day to celebrate
(9/27)
Editorial: NMAI honors cultures,
past and present (9/27)
Opinion: NMAI
exhibits barely scratch the surface (9/27)
Take a sneak peek at the new NMAI in Washington
(9/16)
Natives get ready to descend on DC
for NMAI fest (9/16)
Non-recognized
Virginia tribes welcome NMAI opening (9/16)
NMAI curators seek to translate culture for
visitors (9/15)
Agua Caliente Band among
largest donors to NMAI (9/15)
Politics
on tap for NMAI grand opening week (9/14)
New NMAI nears grand opening in Washington, DC
(9/13)
Eastern Cherokees choose 10
events for NMAI exhibit (9/14)
New NMAI
nears grand opening in Washington, DC (9/13)
Navajo ethnobotanist part of NMAI design team
(9/9)
California tribe featured in
opening NMAI exhibit (9/8)
Gaming tribes
donated big money for new NMAI (9/8)
New
Indian museum to be open to ceremonies (08/19)
NMAI prepares to welcome Native people to DC
(08/10)
Use of pipestone at new NMAI prompts
complaints (8/6)
New Indian museum in DC
promises to be 'different' (8/2)
New
NMAI includes focus on urban Indians (07/28)
NMAI: From saving Indians to honoring them
(03/18)
Week long festival planned for NMAI
opening in Sept. (01/16)
Copyright © 2000-2006 Indianz.Com
