Explore Indigenous Expression + New American Art At Heard
PHOTO: STEVE WHEELER WOMAN EATING A HOT DOG, 1950-1975, OIL ON CANVAS, CHARLES AND VALERIE DIKER COLLECTION
Starting this month, The Heard Museum welcomes “Space Makers: Indigenous Expression and a New American Art,” an exhibition on tour from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.
Indian Space Painters broke onto the scene in the 1930s, not as indigenous makers nor abstract painters but simply artists who managed to coalesce historic Native American visual elements (geometric designs, symbols and stylized figurative motifs) with the emerging Cubist and abstract styles of the time. The movement expanded from there, and this exhibition explores its relationships.
“It reveals how social and aesthetic networks extend across cultural and geographic boundaries,” explains Christopher T. Green, the exhibition’s curator and a visiting assistant professor at Swarthmore College. “It suggests a story of mutual looking, inspiration and exchange.”
Significant artists represented in the exhibition include Steve Wheeler (above) and Peter Busa, indigenous artists Linda Lomahaftewa and Benjamin Harjo Jr., and modern artists like Jackson Pollock. The exhibition runs through March 2, 2025.