Manuela Well-Off-Man

Please join Curator Dr. Mindy N. Besaw (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art), Independent Curator Candice Hopkins (Tlingit, citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation), and Chief Curator Dr. Manuela Well-Off-Man (IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts) for coffee and a dynamic discussion for MoCNA’s newest exhibition Art for a New Understanding: Native Perspectives, 1950s to Now organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The show features approximately 80 artworks from 1950 to today, including paintings, photography, video, textiles, sculptures, performance art, and more, created by Indigenous US and Canadian artists that bring a deeply informed international perspective on contemporary Native arts and narrative.

Candice Hopkins

Dr. Mindy N. Besaw, Curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, oversees the American art collection covering Colonial times to 1900. Prior to her current position, Besaw was curator of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Whitney Western Art Museum in Cody, Wyoming, where she spearheaded the renovation and reinstallation of the galleries for the 50th anniversary. Besaw is co-author of Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley, the first examination of Stanley as an important 19th-century American artist.

Mindy Besaw

Candice Hopkins (Tlingit, citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation) has held curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Canada, the Western Front, and the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre. Recent curatorial projects include Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, a multi-site exhibition in Winnipeg, Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Unsettled Landscapes at SITE Santa Fe, and documenta 14 in Athens Greece and Kassel, Germany (2017).

Dr. Manuela Well-Off-Man is an art historian and Chief Curator at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. She previously served as Curator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. With more than 15 years of curatorial experience in museums and galleries, she has curated more than 46 exhibitions, including national and international contemporary Native American art exhibitions. She lectures frequently on American art, and has authored numerous exhibition catalogue essays, magazine articles, blogs, and scholarly texts.

For more information please contact MoCNA Membership and Program Manager Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo) at (505) 428-5907 or ahanley@iaia.edu.

Art for a New Understanding: Native Perspectives, 1950s to Now

Headdress, Dana Claxton (Sioux), 2015 , LED firebox with transmounted Lightjet Duratrans, 48 x 32 inches, Collection of Rosalind and Amir Adnani

Art for a New Understanding: Native Perspectives, 1950s to Now seeks to expand and reposition art in the U.S. and Canada since 1950. It is the first exhibition to chart the development of contemporary Indigenous art from the United States and Canada, beginning when artists moved from more regionally based conversations and practices to an increased agency within national and global contemporary art. The exhibition examines the practices and perspectives of the most influential Native artists and their important contributions in conversation with the well-known history of American artistic practice, thus placing Indigenous art within its rightful context. Themes will include the politics of representation and self-representation as well as Indigenous perspectives of land and history, thereby expanding understandings not only of American art, but the very definition of America itself.

Art for a New Understanding: Native Perspectives, 1950s to Now is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and co-curated by Mindy Besaw, Independent Curator Candice Hopkins (Tlingit, citizen of Tagish First Nation), and Manuela Well-Off-Man, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA).

Participating Artists

• Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee)
• Fritz Scholder (Luiseño)
• T.C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo)
• Dana Claxton (Sioux)
• George Morrison (Chippewa)
• Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Dakota)
• Carl Beam (Ojibwe)
• Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish and Kootenai)
• Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Coast Salish and Okanagan)
• Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe)
• Brian Jungen (Dane-zaa)
• Kent Monkman (Fish River Band and Swampy Cree)
• Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee)
• Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw and Cherokee)

The opening reception on January 25, 2019 from 5–7 pm is free and open to the public. Appetizers and refreshments served.