DIVSM300 Contemp Native American Art
SPRING 2012

Diversity Studies Seminars are in-depth experiences in the study of multiculturalism and cultural diversity in American society and in societies that have impacted American society. Courses expose students to and inform students about the contributions of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latinos to American culture, history, and society.

The last few decades have been pivotal in re-situating Native American art within contemporary art movements, and redefining the role of Native artists on the world stage, as well as within Native communities. The contributions of Native American artists and intellectuals to recent and ongoing debates about "exhibiting culture", "selling the Indian", and more general practices about the effects of cultural appropriation on Native and non-Native artistic production and circulation, informs larger understandings about cultural practices, art and identity, and their inextricable relationships. This course will develop these ideas by focusing on contemporary Native American art of the 20th and 21st centuries to help students understand the relationships between Native American art in the contexts of internal colonial interventions on the one hand, and the inclusion and exclusion of Native American artists in broader art and social movements, as well as the role of artists within their respective communities. Case studies will consider the relationship of modernism and the American avant-garde and its idealized influence of Native American art, as well as the how American art movements shaped a generation of American Indian artists, resulting in discrete 'schools' of American Indian painting and sculpture. Late 20th century movements that fore-grounded issues of identity and cultural restitution will likewise consider the effects of these broader developments on the work of individual artists, and how the practices of Native American artists continue to re-assert and re-appropriate cultural identity away from stereotyped slots. This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cultural diversity through the lens of Native American art by surveying the works of artists, curators, anthropologists and cultural critics whose work raises critical questions about the role of Native American art in relation to other contemporary art forms and movements. Through visual presentations, readings, guest artists, and surveys of indigenous art centers, it will also examine the renaissance of Native art and how it impacts the future of indigenous communities.