Museumof IndianArts and Culture/ Laboratory of Anthropology

03-27-2008

Comic Art Indigène

There were cartoons before the Sunday Comics

and Super Heroes before Super Man

May 11, 2008 - January 4, 2009

Lest Tyranny Triumph

Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo), Pencil, ink on board, ca. 2004

 

Santa Fe, NM-Storytelling has long been a part of Native American culture. Comic Art Indigène which opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on May 11, 2008 looks at how storytelling has been used through comics and comic inspired art to express the contemporary Native American experience. Under the larger definition of narrative art, comic art is more related to Native American art traditions than one might expect. The earliest surviving examples of such narrative art is rock art. The historic examples used in the exhibition, such as photographs of rock art, ledger art, and ceramics are meant to link Native American art traditions with contemporary voices.

 

Making comics and producing art inspired by them is a method of reclaiming the narrative art form of comics and Native American culture from those who would dismiss an art for the masses. Today, Native American artists are reclaiming stereotypes used in earlier comic art depicting Indians as savage, war-like primitives or trusty sidekicks.

The exhibition begins with a photograph of a cartoon from the 13th century. The image of the red, white and blue pictograph of the All American Man, a shield carrying warrior from the Pueblo II period (carbon dated to ca. 1290) will be contrasted to a Jack Kirby drawing of that other red, white and blue shield hurling hero, Captain America. The most recent works will be from 2008. The majority of Indian art will be from 1990 to the present day.

 

Two-fisted tales of suspense showcasing fantastic heroes and villains interacting with gods old and new have always been a part of Native American Culture. As the first widely accessible mass media, comic strips, and comic books, were consumed by Indian people as a recognizable and legitimate form of storytelling. Stories of humor, adventure and the fantastic depicted through pictures have always been an indigenous practice. Today's Native American scribes grapple with the same topics emboldened with millennia-old cultural traditions, blended with new methods of expression and life in the 21st Century.

Comic Art Indigène examines how American Indian artists articulate identity, reclaim stereotypes, worldview, politics, and culture through the kinetic expression of sequential art. Inspired by this unique medium, using its icons, tropes and dynamism, this is a new world of American Indian art, full of the brash excitement first seen on newsprint a century ago, sometimes unrefined, even crude at times, but never sterile.

 

A reception hosted by the Women's Board of the Museum of New Mexico will be held on Sunday, May 11, 2008 beginning at 2:00 p.m.

 

Also opening the same day will be a small exhibition of sculpture in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture created by students in their senior year at IAIA. More information to come.

 

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Located on Museum HillT, the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture shares the beautiful Milner Plaza with the Museum of International Folk Art.  Here, Now and Always, a major permanent exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, combines the voices of living Native Americans with ancient and contemporary artifacts and interactive multimedia to tell the complex stories of the Southwest.  The Buchsbaum Gallery displays ceramics from the region's pueblos.  Five changing galleries present exhibits on subjects ranging from archaeological excavations to contemporary art.  In addition, an outdoor sculpture garden offers rotating exhibits of works by Native American sculptors.

 

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

 

Information for the Public

Location:  The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is located on Museum HillT, Camino Lejo off Old Santa Fe Trail.

Information: 505-476-1250 or visit www.indianartsandculture.org

Days/Times: Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.  Between Memorial Day and Labor Day the Museum is also open on Monday.

Admission: School groups free. Children 16 and under free. New Mexico residents with ID free on Sundays. New Mexico resident Senior Citizens (age 60+) with ID free Wednesdays. Museum Foundation members free. NM Veterans with 50% or more disability free. Students with ID $1 discount. Single visit to one museum: $8.00 for non-state residents; $6.00 for New Mexico residents.  Four-day pass to five museums including state-run museums in Santa Fe plus The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art $18.00. One-day pass for two museums (Museum of International Folk Art and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture OR New Mexico Museum of Art and Palace of the Governors) $12.00. Group rate for ten or more people: single visit $6.00, four day pass $16.00.

 

 

 

 

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