First American Art Magazine No. 22, Spring 2019 | Page 12

EDITOR’S GREETING
Y
EARS AGO Katherine Abu
Hadal launched a campaign
to declare that Native art
should not be shown in natural
history museums but instead be shown
in art museums. At the time my mental
response was, Who on earth is Katherine
Abu Hadal? and then, What is the value
of separating human endeavors such as
art from the natural world? Regarding
the question of where Native art should
be exhibited, the answer is simple and
obvious: Native art should be shown
in natural history museums and art
museums (in the Art of Americas wing,
American wing, Latin American wing,
contemporary art wing, modern art wing,
educational rooms, administrative offices,
cafés, lawns, etc.), as well as commercial
galleries, nonprofit alternative spaces,
kunsthalle, public squares, the streets, and
any other potential art venue. Regarding
the second question, should art be seen as
an exclusively human endeavor separated
from other species—that's more complex.
When I briefly taught Native art
history at the Institute of American Indian
Arts, each semester I had the students
write an essay about “What Is Art?” In one
class, a student asked if paintings by dogs
and elephants would be considered art.
The argument that paintings by dogs and
elephants do not constitute art hinges on
cognition and intentionality. Presumably,
dogs and elephants have not studied art
history or theory. 1 However, one could
argue these are the ultimate outsider
artists. I have no problem with their
inclusion; others would disagree. What
do we really know about non-human
cognition? Am I anthropomorphizing
animals instead of appreciating them for
their own ways of knowing?
Still, wouldn’t isolating art from
non-human animals, plants, fungi, and
other lifeforms play right into Eurocentric
humanist values that led us to our current
Anthropocene crisis of mass extinctions
of diverse species?
Deep ecology, a movement that does
not privilege humans above other living
beings but instead sees us as part of a
larger whole, was founded in 1973 by the
Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess. This
seems like Western thinking belatedly
playing catch-up to Indigenous thinking.
above America Meredith (Cherokee Nation),
Grassroots Organizing (Little Bluestem), 2007,
gouache on paper, 14 × 11 in.
The Ecological Indian, blissfully at one
with nature, is, of course, a stereotype that
Native people have resisted, but beyond
the stereotype is a core understanding
that humans are an integral part of nature,
not separate. Biodiversity hot spots, those
places with the highest concentration of
diverse lifeforms, coincide with linguistic
diversity and are homes to Indigenous
peoples worldwide. 2
In a natural history museum, one
can see Native art in close proximity to the
raw materials, such as abalone, the shell
of a living mollusk. These non-human
beings are, in many ways, our collabora-
tors, and Native artists often speak up for
their welfare and fight the dire situations
humans have imposed on them. Perhaps
the most famous historical example is
the Southern Plains warriors who risked
their lives to fight the mercenary buffalo
hunters, or the Native artists of today
fighting to save the salmon and the black
ash trees. In her interview, Leah Mata-
Fragua relays her anguish over abalones
being threatened with extinction.
Meanwhile, in an art museum, the
vast, soaring spaces spawn serious reflec-
tion and invite people to slow down,
spend time with the artwork, reflect on
and challenge their own ideas. Yet, doesn’t
much of Indigenous knowledge stem from
close, contemplative understanding—
deep reading—of our fellow animals,
plants, fungi, and other living beings?
Perhaps art is an overt, intentional catalyst
whose invitation we should carry with us
to contemplate the outside world.
In this issue Andrea Ferber titled
her introduction to international repa-
triation protocols “The Rhizomes of
Repatriation.” What an apt metaphor for
the spread of artistic ideas! Rhizomes are
roots that run laterally across the ground
while extending root hairs into the earth
to seek life-sustaining water. They sprout
new life, both connected to and potentially
independent of the mother plant. Also
called root runners, these provide artistic
materials for Cherokee basket makers
here in Oklahoma. Their growth parallels
the organic spread, potentially direct and
far-reaching, or serpentine, when encoun-
tering walls, metaphorical or literal.
B oliv i a and E c u ador, b ot h
countries with Indigenous/mestizo
majority populations, incorporated
the rights of non-human beings into
their constitutions. At the end of 2018,
the White Earth Ojibwe passed a law
guaranteeing the rights of wild rice.
Maybe the art world should follow
their lead.
—America Meredith
1. After an acquaintance from Colorado was disgruntled because her application to art school was rejected, she noticed a neighboring dog’s habit of lining up objects—sticks,
balls, and the like—next to a swimming pool in his yard. She began photographing the dog’s various installations and submitted these to the same art school. The dog’s
application was accepted. Unfortunately for us, the dog did not attend the school, so we don’t know if studying art would have enriched the dog’s artistic oeuvre.
2. L. J. Gorenflo, Suzanne Romaine, Russell A. Mittermeier, Kristen Walker-Painemilla, “Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and
high biodiversity wilderness areas,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 7, 2012), abstract; Russell A. Mittermeier, “Language Diversity Is Highest in
Biodiversity Hotspots,” Human Nature (May 10, 2012), web.
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