Indian Theater: Native. Performance, Art and Self-Determination since 1969

Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 is the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theater as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists, beginning with the role that Native artists have played in the self-determination era, sparked by the Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes in 1969. Native artists then and now are at the vanguard of performance art practices and discourse. As part of Indian Theater, their work uses humor as a strategy for cultural critique and reflection, parses the inherent relationships between objecthood and agency, and frequently complicates representations of the Native body through signaling the body’s absence and presence via clothing, blanketing, and adornment. In the exhibition, song, dance, and music are also posited as a basis for collectivity and resistance and a means to speak back to a time when Native traditional ceremony and public gatherings were illegal in both the United States and Canada. In addition to artworks, the exhibition includes important archival material documenting the emergence of the New Native Theater movement in Santa Fe in 1969 as well as materials directly related to the early self-determination era.

The presentation begins chronologically and cites the 1969 document, Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Process, published by the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Featured is early documentation of IAIA theater performances, along with recently digitized footage of Spiderwoman Theater’s evocatively titled 1978–1980 play Cabaret: An Evening of Disgusting Songs and Pukey Images, available for viewing for the first time since its original debut. The longest running theater group in the United States, and founded by sisters Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel (Rappahannock and Kuna), Spiderwoman Theater emerged from the feminist movement of the 1970s and the disillusionment with the treatment of women in radical political movements of the time. Cabaret reflects the group’s contribution to the national dialogue on gender in its critique and satirization of how women are often made to swallow male platitudes about love and its challenges to homogenizing images of women.

The exhibition progresses with a survey of video, performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, and beadwork that at once pay homage to the legacy of innovative Native aesthetic traditions and this continuing tradition of experimentation and performativity. Jeffrey Gibson’s commission responds directly to the 1969 treatise, Indian Theatre, with a new performance titled Don’t Make Me Over, an arced choreography that centers music and oration. White Carver, an installation by Nicholas Galanin, is activated by a non-Native carver engaged in carving a surprising object, one that might initially seem like a customary item in the vein of Northwest Coast Native American art. Galanin reconceives traditional carving practices, including the ways in which many Native carvers on the Northwest coast publicly perform their craft to a non-Native public, to confront the history of colonial fetishization of Indigenous cultures and objects. Another performance, commissioned for the exhibition, will feature artist Eric-Paul Riege as he engages with a series of soft sculptures of oversized pairs of Diné earrings suspended from the gallery ceiling. Over his day-long durational performance, his sculptures are activated and sounded, becoming an extension of the artist’s body and Diné cosmology.

Both Galanin’s and Riege’s performances will take place in the galleries during opening weekend (June 24-25, 2023), joined by Rebecca Belmore, who will activate her large-scale commission, Force of Labour (ongoing) –, with a durational performance, and participate in an artist talk. Installed on the exterior of the Hessel Museum of Art, Force of Labour (ongoing) – is a monumental new work (17 x 30 ft) that will blanket the Museum’s façade. Using worker’s coveralls as raw material, the piece mirrors the dimension of a flag, but instead of symbolizing nationhood or sovereignty, this work questions the colonial impulses behind these gestures and their histories of labor exploitation and territorial claims. The performance Saw Kill (2023) begins with performers gathering at the eponymous creek and walking together, in a procession, carrying creek water and clay for the making of a monument on the grounds of the Hessel Museum.

Curated by Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Forge Project’s Executive Director and CCS Bard’s Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies, with curatorial research led by Amelia Russo, this major exhibition celebrates the partnership established in 2022 with Forge Project to provide dedicated programming on key topics and methods in Native American and Indigenous studies throughout the Bard network.