Kimberly Hatfield

An exhibition shines a light on pathbreaking Indigenous glass artists

‘Clearly Indigenous’ at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture looks at the myriad ways Indigenous artists have re-imagined traditional imagery and techniques in the uniquely pliable material

Glass, with its inherent technical and artistic properties, has proved to be a compelling medium for Indigenous artists to share traditional stories and designs and explore contemporary issues. The pliable, shape-shifting material is the focus of Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass (until 16 June), an exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico that showcases works by 33 Indigenous artists, as well as those of renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly.

The show features the work of 29 artists from 26 tribes and nations in the US and Canada as well as four Indigenous artists from the Pacific Rim. More than 130 contemporary glass art pieces are on display including vessels, boxes, totems, animals, human figures, mosaics, masks and other unique objects that honor tradition but also explore modern challenges.

“Native iconography has a history and a tradition and a continuity in design, but contemporary artists, possibly to a much greater extent than earlier Native artists, feel free to use their own creative sense,” says Letitia Chambers, the former chief executive of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, who co-curated the exhibition with Cathy Short. “It is not simply copying patterns of the past, but building their own artistic sensibilities into their pieces and into the objects that they make.”

Continue reading at The Art Newspaper.