Meta-Criticism: Responding to the Response to the Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains at the Brooklyn Museum, Conclusion

First and foremost, open, honest dialogue that is ongoing is good. Not every Native artist wants a non-Native audience, but for those that do, the response is informative. Several of the writers were receptive and responsive to the works in Tipi but others had points of serious disconnect.

If this show were at the National Museum of the American Indian, the response would no doubt be different. Perhaps the show is experiencing some of the backlash Nancy Mithlo has described that happens with Native artists step outside the Native art arena for the larger art world.

With various levels of elitism in the art world, some writers from Manhattan might be prejudiced against Brooklyn or shows designed for the general public instead of a specific art world audience. Many writers geared towards children, which perhaps in their views negates the seriousness or sophistication of the art presented. Museums are constantly looking at ways to reach out to new audiences and create interactive exhibits, so is this regard, I’ll wager the show will be a success.

By disconnect, I refer to instances the writer is literately not responding to what in the show at all but writing about their own preconceptions. One writer laments the fact that buffalo hides are no longer used for tipi construction; another writers points out that a buffalo hide tipi is being constructed as part of this very exhibit. All the references to tourist kitsch were not only insulting but illuminating. It is important that non-Native youth experience Native culture outside the arena of highway souvenir shops (never mind that the souvenirs certain writers might be writing about were most likely not made by Natives).

While tourism was mentioned, hippies, New Agers, and hobbyists were not mentioned in context of tipis, even though these three groups are often the owners and residents of tipis. However, these groups might be just as exotic as Native Americans to the writers.

The requests for more tragic historical information surprised me, but part of the cultural imprint of Native Americans in the current US psyche is the tragic figure, or as Mary Brave Bird (Brulé Lakota) puts it, “Lo, the Poor Indian.” That Natives’ right to be happy is an issue is evidenced by Ryan Red Corn and Sterlin Harjo’s recent video, “Smiling Indians.” The artists aren’t being superficial or avoiding hard discussions when they tone of the work presented is cheerful. There’s a direct message there: we have the right to be happy and to be three-dimensional living people instead of walking stereotypes of tragic loss. Trust me, every one of the participating artists is keenly aware of their tribal histories, of land loss, massacres, and other human rights’ violations. They are saying that there is more to them and their tribes than loss.

A happy surprise was that none of the art writers mentioned problems with “craft” and “fine art,” and they do not question the state of contemporary works as art. Since that false dichotomy refuses to die here in New Mexico (I am personally committed to helping kill it), it’s encouraging to not see in the East.

Since I’m used to hearing complaints about Native art being too interested in the past, I was surprised and troubled by the repeated complaints about the contemporary work being “problematic.” I did notice none of the writers mentioned Vanessa Jennings (Kiowa-Pima) — were they not aware that she’s also a living, contemporary artist? 19th century Plains Indians are locked into the American consciousness but more and more, contemporary Americans seem to not know how to deal with living Indians. Are there mental blocks? Absolutely. Living indigenous artists don’t want to be the Exotic Other or assimilated, so a new conceptual space for contemporary Native art must be carved out in the mainstream art world.

Joseph Sutton’s point that Native American cultures are “integral to our country’s history” is one approach. Despite assimilationists’ best efforts, tribal cultures have touched every aspect of American society — government, agriculture, medicine, pop culture, etc. To fully live in the US, one should know about Native cultures. None of my ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution, but I definitely study both, and pay attention to contemporary political art. Commonalities arising from sharing a land could be emphasized in promoting living Native arts to non-Native peoples.

Cross-cultural communication is possible. Curators Nancy Rosoff and Susan Kennedy Zeller are knowledge and sensitive to Native American art, artists, and greater cultures. I believe through their efforts, as well as the artists’ and consultants’ effort, cross-culturally conceptual bridges will the built and strengthened.

For a person such as myself, who is 2006 miles away from the art show, the museum published an amazing catalog, featuring a dozen essays and excellent photography. The artists contributed essays, as well as curators and other art writers.

Rosoff, Nancy B. and Susan Kennedy Zeller. Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 2011. Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 978-0295990774.

Meta-Criticism: Responding to the Response to the Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains at the Brooklyn Museum, Part Two

Continuing to look at writing about the Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains currently at the Brooklyn Museum...

Rosenbaum, Lee. “Beyond the Tepid Tepees: Brooklyn’s Engrossing Plains Indian Show.” CultureGrrl. 17 March 2011.

The New York Times disabled comments to Ken Johnson’s article, so award-winning art writer Lee Rosenbaum responded to him on her blog in “Beyond the Tepid Tepees: Brooklyn’s Engrossing Plains Indian Show.” She said she “loved this show!” and yet, she delivers one backhanded insult after another. Rosenbaum feels the contemporary art “don't measure up to their antecedents.” Teri Greeves’ Great Lakes Girls, a fully beaded pair of high-heel shoes, which Rosenbaum labeled as “kitsch”; however, Greeves’ beading ability compares very favorably with many 19th beadworkers, and she uses finer materials. Rosenbaum describes Lyle Heavy Runner’s tipi as “big” and “garish.” Perhaps if it were a century old, then it would be “prodigious “ and “graphically bold.” The contemporary artworks are “modern knock-offs.” What are these 21st century post-modern artists “knocking off”? Are they not allowed to bead, carve buffalo horns, weave baskets, or sew tipis? By what authority? Is there any aspect of these works that suggest they were finished quickly and without care?

Rosenbaum shares information text from and even photographs of the museum labels, demonstrating that Ken Johnson’s criticism that the exhibition "offers no revelatory perspective on its [the show's] contents” is unwarranted.

As she brings up in her Wall Street Journal article, Rosenbaum has major issues with the curators choosing to not display culturally sensitive shield covers imbued with medicine. You either respect Native culture and appreciate that some things are not made for general public to view, or you don’t. Attempting to divorce the aesthetics of an artwork from its content is to undermine the intentions of the artist. When it comes to culturally sensitive items that cannot be seen by the public, the only parallel in Western culture I can think of is the Ark of the Covenant (burned into our collective psyche by Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark). Rosenbaum writes she “was of course disappointed that Brooklyn had to fall back on a newly created substitute.” So Marcus Amerman’s fused glass sculpture can’t be seen as an art piece in its own right, with its own aesthetic qualities and content? Am I to assume Sherrie Levine’s photography is also “a newly created substitute?” Does Amerman and the other contemporary artists simply have nothing valid to say? That would make them unique among artists—being devoid of independent viewpoints or experiences.

Rosenbaum wraps her response up with her view that those interfering tribal consultants “restricted Brooklyn's display of pipes” by having the pipe stems and pipe bowls displayed separately because inserting the stem into the bowl “activates the power of the pipe,” as curator Nancy Rosoff explained to Rosenbaum. Kudos to Rosoff for being respectful and showing the pieces separated allows the viewers to see more, not less, of the pipe’s components.

Rosenbaum, Lee. “Shows That Defy Stereotypes.” Wall Street Journal. 15 March 2011.

“Today's curators want visitors to view Indian artworks not as quaint ethnographic artifacts, but as vital expressions of a living culture, spanning prehistory to the present,” writes Lee Rosenbaum about Denver Art Museum’s new Native American galleries. I can’t agree enough. While praising the museum, Rosenbaum finds the juxtaposition of old and new works “exasperating” and is troubled by Bently Spang’s photography war shirt. She describes the Northern Cheyenne artist as “suddenly ubiquitous,” which is ironic, since the artist has been steadily exhibiting for two decades. His works “are meant to be seen, not worn, are also on view in Manhattan and Brooklyn.” So, is this a problem? He’s an installation artist, performance artist, photographer, and filmmaker. Should I be sad that I can’t wear Guy de Cointet’s or Nairy Baghramian’s artwork? Should Sprang not exhibit his artwork in Manhattan or Brooklyn?

Nancy Blomberg, curator of Native American art at the Denver Art Museum, is quoted saying, "Everything in this gallery was new when it was made. . . . I didn't want to separate prehistoric from historic from contemporary.” Yes! This simple statement is powerful. We want our present, our future, and our past, and to acknowledge the continuity between them all. Someday the mainstream art world will accept the fact that Native cultures evolve just like every human culture the earth.

The oddest comment by Rosenbaum was suggesting that museums working with Native advisors can “diminish” art exhibits and cites Nancy Rosoff and Susan Kennedy Zeller’s decision to not display warrior’s shield imbued with medicine in the Brooklyn Museum’s Tipi exhibit. I applaud Rosoff and Zeller for their decision, which honors the deceased warriors, their medicine, and their tribes and protects the audience from exposure to potential danger. By being respectful of culturally sensitive materials, tribes will want to work with these curators in the future and will most likely be more forthcoming with information and artworks to share with the museum.

Rosenbaum suggests the two curators had to “settle” for a fused glass shield by Choctaw artist Marcus Amerman. I would love to “settle” for one of his five-digit glass sculptures, which win awards and are in major collections throughout the country. But a profound ambivalence to contemporary indigenous art permeates all these critiques.

Karlins, N. F. "At the Brooklyn Museum: Tipis of the Brooklyn Plains." Artnet. 2011.

N.F. Karlins, a New York critic and art historian, wrote a highly informative and straightforward piece for Art.net, “At the Brooklyn Museum: Tipis of the Brooklyn Plains.” Karlins discusses gender roles in art, ownership of designs, aesthetics, and changing traditions. One line strikes an strange chord: “…Native Americans had architecture as well as art’’ – are there cultures without architecture? But overall, this is a well-written, concise critique. Of the 11 illustrations, the only contemporary images were two works by Teri Greeves.

Deliso, Meredith. “Home on the Range! Brooklyn Museum Reaches New Heights with Tipi Exhibition.” The Brooklyn Paper. 15 Feb 2011

Melissa Deliso’s description of the Tipi show is enthusiastic, and she took the time to personally interview curator Susan Kennedy Zeller. She writes about a “Southern Shayne tipi.” I make type-o’s and spelling errors too, but I don’t have paid copy editors reading my text. “Cheyenne,” besides being the capital of Wyoming, is a standard word in all computer spellcheckers. In composing her title, Deliso was most likely unaware that Kansas’ state song, “Home on the Range” has a verse devoted to the ethnic cleansing of Natives from Kansas: “The red man was pressed/from this part of the West,/He's likely no more to return/To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever/Their flickering campfires burn”.* Fortunately the ethnic cleansing was unsuccessful and Kansas is home to four federally recognized tribes and Haskell Indian Nations University.

* Higley, Brewster and Dan Kelley. “Kansas State Song: Home on the Range.” State Symbols USA.

Sutton, Benjamin. “The Brooklyn Museum Turns Tipis Inside Out.” The L Magazine. 2 March 2011.

Benjamin Sutton wrote about the functional and conceptual aspects of a tipi and about the complex and interdependent Plains gender roles. He points out that the exhibit included tipi liners painted by Rain-in-the-Face, a 19th century Lakota warrior, and Harvey Pratt, a living Cheyenne Vietnam veteran. He makes the interesting observation that tipis are “places to display pride and admit vulnerability.” Unfortunately, Sutton also seems to be troubled by contemporary Native art, writing that “Contemporary pieces problematize such functions” and is concerned that Crow artist Mary Lou Big Day’s dolls are sold in galleries instead of being played with. So the problem isn’t that Mary Lou Big Day has chosen a potentially utilitarian or “craft” form of art; it’s that they are valuable and featured in art institutions. Maybe the longstanding tradition of highly valuable Japanese ningyō would be an appropriate comparison?

Levin, Ann. “'Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains’ on view at the Brooklyn Museum.” The Associated Press. Via North Jersey.com. 1 March 2011

Ann Levin wrote a descriptive piece literately with when/where/how much information about the show. She describes practical details of the “tepee” and paraphrases the rules of behavior in a tipi as outlined in the show’s signage. She described lessons Dennis Sun Rhodes (Northern Arapaho) learned from his grandmother and Levin concludes, “Maybe all of us should be living in tepees.” Her description of the show was concise, precise, and thoughtful.

Sutton, Joseph. “Review of the Tipi Exhibit: Wandering the Great Plains at Brooklyn Museum.” Brooklyn Exposed. 21 Feb 2011.

Joseph Sutton is the first writer who comes out and speaks to the unrealistic perspective about Native Americans that is so pervasive in the United States. He mentions that Brooklyn only has 0.3% Native American population, which acknowledges that Brooklyn has a Native American population. Sutton encourages his readers “to satisfy their curiosity of a culture integral to our country’s history.” This is profound; the Native American isn’t the Other. Natives and non-Natives are united by a common national history. Sutton describes Harvey Pratt’s Vietnam War Experiences Tipi Liner and discusses Native military traditions. He talks about earlier works being functional first and aesthetic second. A basket by Arapaho-Seminole artist Carol Emarthle-Douglas (not Carole Emarthele-Douglas),“Gathering of Nations” is presented as an example of the shift towards aesthetics over utility in contemporary Native art. Sutton’s statement that “the basket is strictly art” is huge in a climate when “crafts” are frowned upon.

Sutton writes, “It’s a privilege to have such insight on a culture we do not pay enough attention to outside of stereotypical portrayal in the media.” The “we” implies that the readers cannot be Native themselves, but other than that, his critique was well written and thought out. He suggests the show is didactic, which is a legitimate criticism.

ICTNM Staff. “Brooklyn Exhibit Focuses on Plains Culture.” Indian Country Today. 2 March 2011.

I had hoped to close by writing about Indian Country Today’s assessment of the Tipi exhibit; however, all they had was a brief blurb and a slide show. There’s an enigmatic, uncensored comment questioning Lyle Heavy Runner’s Blackfeet heritage, a subject I know nothing about. But if you want anyone to seriously consider what you have to say, LAY OFF THE CAPS LOCK. Native magazines tend to be uniformly promotional in tone. So no criticism from the Native side, yet… I’ll definitely watch for more Native responses formal and informal. Hopefully a Native critique will be forthcoming.

Meta-Criticism: Responding to the Response to the Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains at the Brooklyn Museum, Part One

New York is arguably the center of the art world, and the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit, Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains puts Native art, both historic and contemporary, in crosshairs of mainstream art writers. That it received so much attention from art writers is a coup for curators Nancy Rosoff and Susan Kennedy Zeller. However, the quality of much of the writing leaves something to be desired.

Johnson, Ken. “Plains Indian Culture, as Seen Through the Ingenuity of the Tepee.” New York Times. 14 March 2011.

I’ll begin with Ken Johnson’s New York Times review of Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains, as it stands out as the most flippant and dismissive. He approves, albeit condescendingly, of the historical works but disregards the “kitschy pieces” by living artists.

Johnson’s critique opens with, “You know there’s trouble when the first object you encounter in a museum exhibition looks as if it had been misplaced from the gift shop.” The art piece to which Johnson refers is 21st Century Traditional: Beaded Tipi, a miniature tipi by Teri Greeves (Kiowa-Comanche-Italian), which he describes as “cartoonish” and “cheerfully saccharine.” Art is subjective and certainly he has no obligation to like the piece, but if it’s a true critique, the description should be accurate. The tipi, commissioned by the museum of the show, stands 46” tall and is made of brain-tanned deer hide, various seed and bugle beads, silver, pearls, raw diamonds, copper, cotton, rope, pine, poplar, and bubinga, a tropical African hardwood (Rosoff and Zeller 35). Kitsch refers to work that is cheap and mass-produced; this is a labor-intensive handmade piece with precious and semi-precious materials.

The beaded imagery is celestial (sun, morning star, and moon), zoomorphic (three buffalo), and various Native figures – faceless adults and children, a drum circle with microphone, and dancers. Nothing particularly screams “saccharine” — the palette is bold with the only pastel color being sky blue. Perhaps the imagery of adults holding or walking with children is too sweet? That’s a sad state of human affairs is that is the culprit. Otherwise, the “fault” must lie in the diminutive size of the piece. The art world is rife with size queens.

Johnson writes about the tipi, “the object has a relationship to the historic material that is perplexing at best.” Sorry, the relationship is painfully obvious and the title even underlines the point. The figures are all Plains Indians in 21st century dress—some Kiowa, some intertribal—and the piece shows that songs, dances, familial relations have maintained continuity over the centuries, as have Plains peoples relationships to celestial forces, despite changing technology, as exemplified by the microphone. Miniature tipis have an historical antecedent as young girl’s toys, but in the 20th century, they have increasingly been commissioned by museums. Just as the tipi is portable, the miniature tipi is a portable expression of Plains culture. The piece is upbeat, but that is part of the message: Kiowa people are alive and have much to celebrate. Greeves’ art statements are included in the labels and wall text; however, none of the art writers referred to these texts.

Johnson is disappointed that he believes the show “speaks down to its audience, assuming a low level of sophistication,” but frankly that’s not an inappropriate assumption—very unfortunately non-Natives tend to not have extensive knowledge of Native culture, as Johnson illustrates when he switches his spelling to “tepee” and simultaneously points out that Lyle Heavy Runner (Blackfeet not “Blackfoot” as Johnson writes) created a tipi with a “sacred design…handed down for generations” but describes it as looking “as if it had been borrowed from a roadside souvenir stand.” Which one is it? Apparently Johnson has only encountered tipis at roadside tourist traps and refuses to make the conceptual leap that tipis (and by extension Indians) have an existence independent of tourism and kitsch in the 21st century.

Húŋkpapȟa Lakota Butch Thunder Hawk’s Horse Head Effigy Stick is described by Johnson as resembling “a war club, with a horse-head-shaped business end.” The writer has never heard of the Horse Dance and doesn’t know that when a beloved horse dies, its owner will make or commission a wooden sculpture in the likeness of that horse to carry in ceremonial dances. Fair enough. But if I went to a museum and wasn’t familiar about art form, personally, I would opt to not publicly parade my ignorance; I would either read up or ask questions, but that would require the desire actually to learn about the art form in question.

Johnson suggests that the Native American Church material deserves its own exhibition, because he has never heard of the 2002 traveling exhibit Symbols of Faith and Belief: Art of the Native American Church with a superb catalog. Perhaps Google was down that day?

The gift shop with tipi-related products is repugnant to Johnson in light of “the tragic, still painful history evoked” by the exhibit. These reflect some of the “rules” about Indians that firmly implanted into the mainstream American psyche:

• Indians are historic.
• Indians are tragic. 
• Indians are dead.

“The Plains Indian culture that gave rise to these kinds of objects,” Johnson insists “was practically destroyed by the United States government’s campaign to clear land for settlement by white people over a century ago.” But it wasn’t destroyed. The artists Kevin Pourier, Butch Thunder Hawk, Teri Greeves, Lyle Heavy Runner, and others are explicitly spelling this fact out through their art—Plains culture and Plains Indians is alive in the 21st century. These artists still have a relationship to their spirituality, their land, and their people, as well the buffalo, deer, and horse that have been so integral to Plains culture. It is an important message, which was lost on a man wearing his “selective-attention goggles,” but hopefully will not be lost on other museumgoers.

Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains, Brooklyn Museum website