native american art in southwest

......starting around noon, I visited the art gallery at the Woolaroc property. The property itself is a sprawling celebration of the landscape and wildlife unique to this part of North America: there are herds of buffalo on the property although we did not get to see any when we arrived. I headed straight to the gallery, which is locally renowned for its collection of paintings from the Taos group.

Many of the artists on display I had heard of before, and was eager to encounter first hand and was not disappointed. Although I relished the paintings themselves for their objective aesthetic beauty, I came away from the experience with profound mixed feelings about the way Native Americans have been appropriated for use as subjects by white artists. The objectification of Indians in European-American art parallels their subjugation as a people.

Caldwell (n.d.) points out the "longstanding history and tradition of America's investment in 'othering' Native Americans." Even when the "othering" obviously indicates a potent sense of respect for the "other," the case remains that this is how European-Americans perceived the "others" they encountered, and not the voices of the Indians themselves. Berlo & Phillips (1998) also refer to the colonial appropriation of Native art, which although different from colonial interpretation of Native life, carries the same connotation.

I would have appreciated a juxtaposition of art by Native Americans depicting the white people they encountered. However, I wanted to first appreciate the work at face value: respecting that the artists featured in the gallery were constrained by their own cultural and historical milieu and its attendant biases. On display at the Woolaroc gallery included William Leigh's fetching "Visions of Yesterday," in which the painter uses chiaroscuro to depict the last moments of sunlight on the landscape.

Here, an old Native man who appears exhausted after a day's work plowing the fields with his two work horses, gazes down at an animal skull. The scene is particularly striking because it seems as if the artist actually understands his subject. This is more than as just a typical attempt of Europeans to romanticize the Indian, the "noble savage." Here we see a man, too old to be performing back-breaking labor, staring at a symbol of the vestiges of his own cultural past.

He is alone, bereft of community and culture. He wears jeans, a symbol of European-American clothing and culture. His feather headdress is the only visible evidence of his connection to his people. The combination of the setting sun, the skull, and the tiredness in the man's body signal a profound sadness. I believe that Leigh actually mourns the genocide of the Indians in this painting. However, Leigh also painted "Navajo Fire Dance," which has a more traditionally colonial spirit about it.

The viewer is part of an audience, which the artist renders as a shadowy mass in the foreground. We are an outsider looking in, and we look into and at the culture of the Navajo, seen here performing a ritual dance. The fact that we are part of a large audience of spectators suggests that the ritual dance is not a ceremony so much as it is a performance, staged for the audience -- a tourist show.

If it is not, then we are a participant-observer, sitting in a mixed crowd filled with members of the Navajo community and European outsiders. Regardless, if we approach the ceremony as an outsider, we do not understand the complexities of the dance. An indigenous spiritual ceremony is not about performativity, it is about a genuine connection between the community and its spiritual origins.

Here, the male dancers do not have individual identities; they are part of a massive circle of men in ecstatic poses leaping around a giant bonfire, each holding a torch at the same time. The scene resembles depictions of pagan worshippers in the indigenous communities of Europe. Therefore, this piece is reminiscent of the ways Europeans denigrate other cultures by making them seem "exotic," and almost dangerous.

Contrary to Leigh's "Visions of Yesterday," here the painter seems to ascribe to the "noble savage" stereotype of the Native American. Robert Lindeaux's "The Trail of Tears" captures one of the most egregious acts in American history. As with Leigh's "Visions of Yesterday," Lindeaux seems to understand the emotional content of what he paints, and does not seem to be engaging in "othering." In this painting, Lindeaux actually performs the act of historical documentation.

He paints the Trail of Tears to show viewers the extent of the displacement of people. Their whole lives were uprooted: their animals come with them, as they march toward an uncertain future. When juxtaposed along with Leigh's "Visions of Yesterday," this painting conveys the deep sense of moral regret and responsibility the white artist does have, and who uses art as a medium of social and political protest. Seeing Native Americans through the eyes of Europeans is an act of symbolic colonialism.

The Indian is an exotic "other," who has no voice.