|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Robert Moore, Debora Iyall,
American Indian Contemporary Arts
Phone/Fax: (415) 989-7003/ (415) 989-7025
Date: June, 1,1999
American Indian Artists Usher In “The
Red Millennium.”
Native artists look to the past and future in mixed
media exhibit at the American Indian Contemporary Arts of San Francisco.
(San Francisco) Native American artists are staking their claim on the 21st century.
American Indian Contemporary Arts has brought together a diverse group of fourteen
artists to create the Red Millennium, asserting Indian identity as a positive model
for the future. Using their artwork to look into both the past and the future they
will illuminate the strength of Native American cultural values at a time when people
all over the world are bracing for the dawn of a new era.
“ The Red Millennium” opens at American Indian Contemporary Arts on Friday, June
18, 1999, with a public reception beginning at 5:00pm. Participating artists will
speak about their work beginning at 7:00pm. The gallery is located at 23 Grant Avenue,
Sixth Floor, near Union Square in downtown San Francisco.
“The transition to the 21st century brings with it a chance to redefine ourselves
and our communities in a new era,” says American Indian Contemporary Arts director
of arts programs Debora Iyall, “The Red Millennium will be a time of social and political
activism. Native values such as responsible environmental stewardship, strength of
community, and spiritual inclusion will be the framework for this new era.” Part
of this process is healing five centuries of cultural repression; genocide, dislocation
and stereotyping endured by native people since European contact. Mohawk painter
Ed Burnam begins this healing process in a series of canvases addressing the Native
American boarding school experience, where Native children were stripped of their
languages and cultures in an effort to assimilate them. While his stark compositions
effectively convey the horrors of these schools, they nonetheless demonstrate the
resilience of Native cultures.
Cochiti pueblo painter Mateo Romero submitted new work from his “Divergent World”
series. These paintings investigate the notion that mainstream and native communities
exist separately, side by side, without a bridging process. In “Tewa, Tiwa, Towa,”
a central figure emerges from a red car, suggesting a cross-over from the Native
community to the mainstream. He literally has one foot in the Indian world of the
car, and the other outside it, on the blacktop. His Mandan-type tattoos indelibly
signify his Indian identity; his contemporary, urban dress reflects his participation
in mainstream society. Beer cans spilling from the car suggest the legacy of dysfunction
from five centuries of cultural oppression. The artist lists the main language groups
and dialects in bold yellow stencil letters along the left-hand side of the painting.
The commanding presence of this wording indicates that, in the Red Millennium, traditional
Native American cultures will thrive even as Indian identity is fully integrated
into the multicultural fabric of America.
Other artists in the exhibition include Florence Benedict (Mohawk of Akwesasne),
Pena Bonita (Apache), Scott Fulten (Haida), Frank Big Bear (Ojibwe), Alyssa Hinton
( Tuscarora/Osage), Zig Jackson (Mandan /Hidatsa/ Arikra), Salli Kawennotakie-Benedict
( Mohawk of Akwesasne), Paul Reevis (Blackfoot ), Suzanna Santos (Tygh/Yakama), Pamela
Shields (Kainaiwa/Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy), Hulleah Tsinhanahjinnie
(Navajo/Creek/Seminole), and Anthony White (Ojibme Red Lake Nation).
American Indian Contemporary arts is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting
and promoting creative expressions of living Native American artists. AICA's programs
include exhibitions in their downtown San Francisco gallery, a lecture series, artist
workshops, and an artist referral program. AICA's resource collection includes a
slide registry containing over 8,000 images, and a database and information files
for over 1,300 Native American artists.
American Indian Contemporary Arts gallery and gift shop is located at 23 Grant Avenue,
Sixth Floor, near Union Square in downtown San Francisco. The gallery is open Tuesday
through Friday from 10:00 am to 5:30pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from Noon until
5:00pm. Admission is free and the gallery is wheelchair accessible.
|
