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Previous Exhibitions
| | | Dramatic photographs, sculpture and murals in this new special exhibit tell the remarkable story of this skywalking construction tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation of Mohawk people. In addition to the 67 black-and-white photographs that document six generations from two Mohawk communities, Akwesasne and Kahnawake, Booming Out also includes a sculpture created by Darryl Pronovost (Mohawk) using metal recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center during the clean-up at Ground Zero. Mohawk Indian ironworkers, who took many of the photos in the exhibit, say that “walking iron” gives them great pride. The Mohawks have constructed portions of national landmarks like the Empire State Building and the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Booming Out was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s George Heye Center and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The exhibition, its national tour and related programs are made possible by the AMB Foundation. Half-hour guided tours are offered on weekends at 2 pm and feature hands-on activities for children. The tours and exhibit in the Mashantucket Gallery are free with Museum admission and free for Museum members. The exhibit is open 10 am–4 pm. Friday & Saturday, March 9–10
Ironworkers Talk Skywalking
Ironworkers John Laughing (retired) and Michael Swamp, ironworkers union head on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, share their experiences and tell tall tales (literally) about life working the “high steel,” building skyscrapers and bridges around the country. Joined by their wives Mary and Lisa, John and Mike discuss the role played by the union, family and community in the lives of Indian ironworkers. From 10 am–10:45 am and 11:30 am–12:15 pm on Friday and from 1–2 pm on Saturday, in the Museum Auditorium. Free with Museum admission, free to Museum members. Friday & Saturday, April 13–14
Skywalking Music & Stories
Theresa and her ironworking husband Sky Fox bring their lives and the Mohawk tradition of “walking the high steel” to life through lively music, stories and their tribal language. Theresa, who was born into a family of ironworkers and grew up to marry one, puts a wife and mother’s point of view into her songs, which incorporate elements of joy, strength and, inevitably, fear. She also uses the Mohawk language, which ironworkers use to communicate at the top of tall buildings, in her songs. From 10–10:45 am and 11:30 am–12:15 pm on Friday and from 1–2:00 pm on Saturday, in the Museum Auditorium. Free with Museum admission, free to Museum members. Friday & Saturday, May 11–12
Female Ironworker, Wife, Mother and Full Journeyman
Mohawk Cynthia Cook was born into an ironworking family – her father worked on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco – and she has continued the tradition. She talks about her life as one of the few women skywalkers and how she balances her dangerous work with family and community life at the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation. From 10–10:45 am and 11:30 am–12:15 pm on Friday and from 1–2 pm on Saturday, in the Museum Auditorium. Free with Museum admission, free to Museum members.
| | | The Smithsonian Community Grant program, funded by MetLife Foundation, is a proud sponsor of these public programs.
| | | | | Sunday, Oct. 29–Dec. 17, 10 am–4 pm
From the Earth:
Native Art in Stone and Clay
New Special Exhibit: From the Earth highlights contemporary Native artists working in stone and clay, displaying more than 40 pieces, including several historic and prehistoric examples. Guided tours by staff educators are offered every weekend at 2 pm starting Nov. 4. The exhibit and tours are free with Museum admission, free for Museum members. Gallery opens to the public at 11 am on October 29, 10 am–4 pm thereafter, last admission at 3 pm.
Opening Day Activities, Oct. 29
• Members’ Preview & Brunch: 10 am
• Creating Pottery Designs: 11 am–2 pm
• Members’ Children Pottery Class: 12:30–2 pm
• Introduction to Iroquois Art: 1–2 pm
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Sunday July 9-October 1
TUSKS! Ice Age Mammoths and Mastodons
The ancient world of prehistoric elephants, mammoths and mastodons comes alive in this exhibit that features 80 fossil specimens, replicas and artifacts thematically organized to show the process of science, from discovery to research to exhibition. It also includes eye-catching graphic panels, murals and "hands-on" exhibit and video interactive modules. TUSKS! examines natural history phenomena and issues that are also addressed in the museum's "Life in a Cold Climate" permanent exhibit area, where one diorama depicts a life-size American mastodon from 11,000 years ago. Every Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. features a special half-hour hands-on guided exhibit tour during which visitors can touch fossil casts of Ice Age mammals, including the skull of an American lion, visit the "Dig Box" and learn the difference between the tusks of Woolly Mammoths and Mastodons. From 15 million years ago until the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, elephants and their relatives, called proboscideans, inhabited prehistoric North America. The exhibit includes unique specimens such as the extinct 10-million-year-old Florida shovel-tusker and other animals that lived with the proboscideans. Visitors to TUSKS! learn how scientists collect and study fossils, how research on ancient climates is done and what is known about why proboscideans became extinct in North America 10,000 years ago. This exhibit was created by the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville. The Gallery opens to the public on 11 am on July 9, thereafter daily 10-4. Free with Museum admission.
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October 8-December 30, 2005
“Mythic Visions” Displays Brightly Colored Yarn Paintings Textile art - the richly colored yarn paintings by the Huichol Indians of Mexico created by applying brightly colored yarn to boards thinly coated with beeswax - is prized by collectors of folk art around the world. Mythic Visions: Yarn Paintings of a Huichol Shaman displays 31 yarn paintings by José Benítez Sánchez, an acclaimed Huichol artist, as well as maps, a short film and color photographs to provide an intimate glimpse into the complexities of the tribe’s spiritual world. Mr. Sánchez is widely regarded as the master of this medium, which is unique to the Huichol Indians. In addition to his artistic talents, he also is considered to be a shaman with personal experiences of other worlds, the mythic world of Huichol gods and sacred ancestors. The works of art depict what this shaman-artist sees while experiencing colorful visions triggered by the peyote cactus, considered sacred by the Huichol people. The Huichols live in northwestern Mexico in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains, and this isolation has helped ensure the survival of their traditional culture. Though Huichol people have been using yarn or string to convey prayers to their deities or to create protective amulets for centuries, “painting” with yarn is a relatively new art form. The practice started in the 1960s when Huichol artists were searching for new creative pieces to sell to tourists. Today yarn painting is an important source of income for many artists and their families. Mr. Sánchez is well known for the fluid, curvilinear style he pioneered in the 1970s. His skillfully rendered yarn paintings offer a seamless flow of interlocking elements that fill the entire space. His wide-reaching fame comes from his unique ability to translate his ephemeral religious visions into two-dimensional art, according to exhibit curator Dr. Peter T. Furst. Mythic Visions is the fifteenth special exhibition to be displayed in the Mashantucket Gallery, a 4,200 square foot space designed for changing displays of Native American arts and culture. It is free with regular Museum admission and guided tours by museum education staff are offered Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Materials relevant to the exhibition will be on display in the Center’s Research Library. The book “Visions of a Huichol Shaman,” written by exhibition curator Peter T. Furst, will be available in the museum gift shop. The exhibition was organized by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
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June 24 to September 5
Native American Fine Arts Show
Native American artists from tribes throughout the Northeast – painters, potters, basket weavers, sculptors, bone and antler carvers and more – exhibit their work in the Mashantucket Gallery. Many pieces in the exhibit will be available for purchase by the public. Special Opening Night Reception on Friday June 24 features wine and hors d’oeuvres, a special judging of the artwork by jurors, and a special members’ choice award. Come meet the artists and see their stunning creations.
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| | | Fusing Traditions:
Transformations in Glass by Native American Artists
October 23, 2004 – April 9, 2005
| | | Eighteen artists combine cultural heritage and individual creativity in a diversity of dazzling new glass forms, including beadwork, pottery, masks, hats, dance wands and spindle whorls in Fusing Traditions: Transformations in Glass by Native American Artists.
The exhibition recognizes an important artistic movement that began in the 1970s when Tony Jojola (Isleta Pueblo) first experimented in glass at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Most recently, Preston Singletary (Tlingit) realized his dream when a cedar totem pole with glass and neon components was raised at the Pilchuck Glass School in celebration of its thirteenth anniversary.
Influenced by their experience at the glass school, master carvers Joe David (Nuu-cha-nulth), John Hagen (Alaskan Native) and Wayne Price (Tlingit) began to experiment with glass in subsequent work. This artistic exchange demonstrates the strength of the ties between the Pilchuck Glass School and the vigor of Native American artists studying there.
The movement has continued as students of the original artists, such as Robert Tannahill (Mohawk/Metis) and Brian Barber (Pawnee), have broken with the functional and decorative origins of glass to create enigmatic and authoritative forms based on their own cultural traditions. Singletary and Susan Point (Coast Salish) use the strong Northwest Coast imagery of their cultures to create revolutionary new forms in sandblasted and carved glass. Jojola transforms pottery shapes into light-filled blown glass vessels. Drawing from American popular culture, Marcus Amerman’s (Chocktaw) glass-bead art relocates Native American art in the twenty-first century.
The exhibit, with 37 pieces in all, also includes the work of Larry Ahvakana (Inupiaq), Michael Carius (Siberian Y’upic), Conrad House (Navajo), Clarissa Hudson(Tlingit), Ramson Lomatewanna (Hopi), Ed Archie NoiseCat (Salish), Marvin Oliver (Quinalt), Shaun Peterson (Salish), and C.S. Tarpley (Chocktaw). The neon artwork of David Svenson, a non-Native American, is featured as well at the request of his students who honor the Pilchuck Glass School teacher.
Fusing Traditions: Transformations in Glass by Native American Artists was co-curated by Carolyn Kastner and Roslyn Tunis and was organized by the Museum of Craft & Folk Art, San Francisco, California, www.MOCFA.org. This special exhibit is the twelfth to be presented in the Pequot Museum’s Mashantucket Gallery. An exhibit catalogue is available in the Museum Gift Shop.
Free with Museum admission.
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ISUMAVUT: The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women
March 20 Through September 6, 2004
This imaginative portrayal of the outside influences on Inuit society is the first comprehensive exhibition to explore contemporary life in northern Canada through indigenous art. Isumavut: The Artistic Expression of Nine Cape Dorset Women features 91 works – prints, drawings, acrylic paintings, jewelry and sculpture created between 1959 and 1992 that focus on the evolving role of women in Inuit culture and the development of each artist’s style. “These works present a unique window on a remote world,” said Odette Leroux, curator of the exhibition. “While reflecting changes in tastes and behavior, the artists are always conscious of preserving their recollections as something they can leave for other generations.” Isumavut is a traveling exhibition produced by the Canadian Museum of Civilization presented in the museum’s Mashantucket Gallery. Works in the exhibit are by the late Pitseolak Ashoona and the late Lucy Qinnuayuak who, with Kenojuak Ashevak, established the reputation of art from Cape Dorset. In the same tradition are works by Mayoreak Ashoona, Qaunak Mikkigak, Oopik Pitsiulak, Napachie Pootoogook, Pitaloosie and Ovilu Tunnillie. A catalogue available in the museum gift shop and the museum’s research library includes both reproductions of artwork and comments by the artists on their lives and works. The exhibition was conceived and organized by Ms. Leroux, the former Canadian Museum of Civilization’s Curator of Inuit Art. Dr. Marion E. Jackson, Associate Professor of Art History at Carleton University, was a consultant and collaborator.
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THE MASTER PRINTS OF EDWARD S. CURTIS: Portraits of Native America
| October 25, 2003 through January 18, 2004
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An Oasis in the Bad Lands, 1905.
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Fifty-five legendary photographs of Native America – vivid portraits of leaders, warriors, women and children – taken a century ago by Edward S. Curtis are displayed in a new special exhibit in the Mashantucket Gallery. The Master Prints of Edward S. Curtis: Portraits of Native America opens on Saturday October 25th. In addition to exhibiting Curtis’ photographic prints, the Museum has asked three contemporary Native artists and photographers – Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), Shelley Niro (Bay of Quinte Mohawk) and Jeff Thomas (Onondaga) – to respond to Curtis’ images in opening day presentations and through the display their own work in the gallery for the run of the exhibit. Curtis was just thirty-three years old in 1901 when he began to document the life and cultures of the North American Indian through photographs and interviews. By 1930 he had studied more than eighty tribes, taken upwards of 40,000 photographs, and earned the support of Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan, among others. The Masters Prints of Edward S. Curtis was developed by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts and is considered the finest museum compilation of Curtis prints anywhere. The exhibition focuses on Curtis the artist, and what he wanted his art to accomplish. Each master print is unique and remains in pristine condition. “These are some of the most glorious prints ever made in the history of the photographic medium,” says Clark Worswick, curator of photography for the Peabody Essex Museum. “The fact that we have this man’s entire show of 1906 is one of the minor miracles of photography and museology.” The exhibition includes what Worswick calls “heroic re-creations” of outdoor encampments and dwellings; figure studies of Indians and their horses, many set against moody, glowering Western skies, with titles such as The Vanishing Tribes and Before the White Man Came; and environmental portraits such as an exquisitely structured rendering of Hopi women making piki bread. Much debate has swirled around the authenticity of Curtis’ photography. He had tribal leaders wear anachronistic headdresses and costumes. He placed his subjects in highly idealized settings, often in dramatic pose. His re-created rituals and customs were at times inaccurate. He attempted the difficult feat of depicting a traditional Indian culture that was changing rapidly as a result of its contact with European Americans. Programming surrounding the exhibit addresses these issues. The Master Prints of Edward S. Curtis: Portraits of Native America reveals the finest examples of Edward Curtis’s tremendously influential and important work as a photographer, but also the complex cultural environment that surrounds relationships between Native Americans and American society at large, both in the past and present. The Master Prints of Edward S. Curtis was sponsored by Foxwoods Resort Casino.
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Hunters of the Sky
May 31 through September 1, 2003 Hunters of the Sky turns a keen eye to how birds of prey have become central figures in North American – and global – art and folklore: raptors have fascinated humans for thousands of years, and these lofty creatures have been revered as hunting companions, celebrated as symbols of majesty and political power and reviled as scavengers and deadly killers. Those who leave their cozy home nests will have the thrilling experience of learning what raptors eat, how they navigate and fly, nest and rear their young, and find and capture their prey. Interactive displays enable guests to compare their arm length to the eight-foot wingspan of an American bald eagle, hoot like an owl in a special “hooting booth,” and use a condor puppet to “feed” baby condors, like environmental scientists do. Other exhibits give visitors the chance to view a diorama of a peregrine falcon, soar above an eagle’s nest, examine feathers up close, view a dramatic video of raptors in action, observe a kestrel nest box, dissect owl pellets, and have the chance to put their two cents in at the “What do you think?” computer interactive display.
Hunters of the Sky was produced by The Science Museum of Minnesota. The exhibit was made possible with funds provided by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life
| November 16, 2002 through February 16, 2003
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Displaying over 300 pieces of stunning and rarely seen examples of beadwork dating from the 19th century to present, Across Borders examines the artistic, cultural and political significance of beadwork in both traditional and contemporary Iroquois culture.
Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life is a travelling exhibition organized and circulated by the McCord Museum, Montreal, Quebec, and the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, NY, in collaboration with the Kanien’kehaka Onkwawén:na Raotitiohkwa, Kahnawake, the Tuscarora Nation community beadworkers within New York State, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
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Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983-1997
June 8, 2002 through September 2, 2002
With over 50 paintings, sculpture and mixed media by 48 national contemporary Native artists, this show both illustrates and celebrates the creativity and innovation of the artists whose works have been among those featured in the Heard Museum’s seven invitational exhibitions from 1983 through 1997.
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Mikwite’lmanej Mikmaqi’k: Let Us Remember the Old Mi’kmaq
| February 16 through April 28, 2002
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Sixty images of Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia and New Foundland taken in 1930-31 by anthropologist Frederick Johnson document a period of time just before major changes in governmental policies towards aboriginal people disrupted age-old lifestyles. Exhibition curators met with present-day Mi’kmaw elders to discuss these images, drawing on their memories as well as historical information to provide a context for the photos. Organized by the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology at Philips Academy in Andover, MA.
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Gifts of Pride & Love: Kiowa and Comanche Cradleboards
October 20, 2001 - January 13, 2002
This show presents 38 historic lattice cradles, or cradleboards, from two southern Plains tribes, inlcuding one dating from 1868. In addition to the handcrafted cradles, many colorfully painted or embroidered with intricate beadwork, the exhibition includes children's clothing and toys, drawings by Native artists, historical photos and videos presentations on the cradlemakers and the cultural importance of cradles with families. Gifts of Pride and Love, Kiowa and Comanche Cradles was created and distributed by the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University in collaboration with the Kiowa/Comanche Consulting Committee. The exhibit's curator was Barbara A. Hail, deputy director and curator of the Haffenreffer Museum. It was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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