Autry National Center

Talks, Presentations, and Screenings

 

Thank you to all the performers and presenters for making 2011 a wonderful festival. We will be announcing the 2012 line-up soon. 

 

Saturday, November 5 2011 

Collectors' Critique with Kim Martindale and Steven Karr

11:00 a.m.

Get an insider’s view of the Juried Competition selection process in this morning presentation with Steven M. Karr, Director and Ahmanson Curator of the Southwest Museum, and Kim Martindale, producer of the Los Angeles Art Show. Learn what the experts look for in quality Native American art and jewelry and gain insight into a curator’s acquisition decisions for a museum collection.

Kim Martindale has been the producer of the Los Angeles Art Show since its inception in 1995. Under his successful management, the show has grown and moved three times to its current location at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It is now considered one of the most prestigious annual exhibitions in the United States.

Steven M. Karr is Director and Ahmanson Curator at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian. He has been with the Autry since January 2005, specializing in Native cultures of North America, particularly California and Oklahoma, where he has worked with Indian communities for over a decade. Prior to the Southwest, he worked at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, where he also taught in the Native American Studies Department and the Native American Studies Institute. He has also taught courses in American Indian history and culture at UCLA. Since 2007, Dr. Karr has been a Distinguished Lecturer with the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the nation’s largest learned society dedicated to the study of American history.

Meet the Author

12:30 p.m.

Stop by Autry Store and meet Toshio Sei, author of Knifewing and Rainbow Man in Zuni Jewelry. This original book delves into the origins and contemporary interpretations of the Knifewing god in Zuni mythology and the scared being Rainbow Man from ancient Zuni traditions. Color photos display subtle variations that indicate a particular master's work and distinctive style. Detailed analysis explains the changes and connections among early and recent makers and their individual styles, materials, and designs. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Toshio Sei is an avid art collector and investigator of Zuni jewelry. He lives and works in Yamaguchi, Japan.        

Notes From the Center of Turtle Island

1:30 p.m.                                                                                                          

 

Duane Champagne, PhD, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and UCLA Professor of Sociology and American Indian Studies, will discuss his latest publication, Notes From the Center of Turtle Island. This fascinating book is a compilation of thought-provoking articles on Indian policy, history, and culture published since October 2006 in the newspaper Indian Country Today. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.                     

Native Voices First Annual Short Play Festival

2:30 p.m.

 

We challenged Native playwrights across the nation to write plays ten- to thirty-minutes long showcasing the theme “Indians in America: What You See Is What You Get.” Now audiences will get to see these diverse and eclectic stories performed live at the Native Voices First Annual Short Play Festival. Join us during the American Indian Arts Marketplace as we present staged readings of these selected short plays, which will make you laugh, cry, and utilize that short attention span.

One of these plays will be selected by a panel of judges for the 2011 Award for Excellence in Playwriting, which includes a $1,000 cash prize!

Sundance Institute at the Autry Presents Native Films

5:30–10:00 p.m.

Sundance Institute at the Autry presents Native Films is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation

You won’t want to miss the latest films from Indian Country, presented in partnership with the Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Film Program. We’ll start the evening at 5:30 p.m. with short films, including Shimásáni by Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo) and Grab by Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna), then take a break with light refreshments and meet filmmakers at a 7:00 p.m. reception in the main lobby. Afterward, settle in for a suspense-filled feature drama, On the Ice, by filmmaker Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (Inuit). 

EVENT AT CAPACITY — RESERVATIONS NO LONGER ACCEPTED
Seating may be available, but not guaranteed, and is on a first-come, first-served basis, if space allows.

The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition

11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m.

Join Autry docents and museum teachers for one-hour tours of this groundbreaking exhibition.

The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition is a comprehensive exhibition presented by the Autry National Center. Baskets from more than 100 cultures, arranged in eleven geographic regions, are revealed in this selection of artworks from the world's largest collection of Native American baskets.

More than 250 objects are on view, ranging in size from small Pomo feather baskets made for sale to tourists, to massive Apache olla baskets used for storing large quantities of seeds. Because the works shown have been selected from a remarkably wide-ranging and distinguished collection, visitors will be able to see how the materials, techniques, and designs of the baskets vary from region to region, reflecting different physical environments and traditions. Also evident will be the distinctive styles of individual artists, whose signatures can be instantly recognizable to other weavers. The Autry invited thirteen contemporary basketweavers to serve as consultants in research and planning and purchased a basket from each consultant to add to the permanent collection.

The Art of Native American Basketry is drawn from the nearly 14,000 baskets in the Autry’s Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, considered to be one of the premier holdings of its kind in the world. The exhibition is in the Autry’s Showcase Gallery in Griffith Park.

Sunday, November 6 2011 

Imprisoned Art, Complex Patronage

11:00 a.m.

The study of what has become known as Plains Indian ledger art, and of Fort Marion drawings in particular, has burgeoned during the past forty years. Joyce M. Szabo’s examination of two ledger art books by Zotom and Howling Wolf encompasses the books’ origins and the issues surrounding their commission as well as what the images say about their creators and their collector. Imprisoned Art, Complex Patronage: Plains Drawings by Howling Wolf and Zotom at the Autry National Center reproduces many of the images from these small books of vivid drawings—one filled with artwork by the Southern Cheyenne warrior-artist Howling Wolf and the other with artwork by Zotom, a Kiowa man—that came to the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, now part of the Autry National Center. After her presentation, Szabo will be joined in conversation with contemporary ledger artist Michael Horse (Yaqui, Zuni, Mescalero Apache), who has helped to revive the art form in recent years. 

Joyce M. Szabo is beginning her twentieth year as a faculty member at the University of New Mexico, where she is an art historian specializing in Native American art and related courses in museum studies. Her area of particular focus is Plains drawing and painting from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, although she has published on other aspects of Native American art, including contemporary artists, as well as American art in general. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

“Sovereignty, Dependency, and the Federal-State-Tribal Triangle”

2:30 p.m.

A unique relationship exists between the United States and Native American tribes. Sovereignty is an internationally recognized concept, and a basic tenet of sovereignty is the power of a people to govern themselves. In practice, federal Indian law is perhaps the most complex area of United States law. Defined as “domestic dependent nations," the range and scope of tribal sovereignty is fragmented into overlapping and sometimes contradictory rules. How did we arrive at this complex relationship, and what is the future of tribal sovereignty in the United States as tribes attain financial independence? Marshall McKay, Chair of the Autry Board of Trustees and Tribal Chairman of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, meets with historians and legal scholars onstage for a conversation about this timely, vital, and complex issue.

The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition

11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Join Autry docents and museum teachers for one-hour tours of this groundbreaking exhibition.

The Art of Native American Basketry: A Living Tradition is a comprehensive exhibition presented by the Autry National Center. Baskets from more than 100 cultures, arranged in eleven geographic regions, are revealed in this selection of artworks from the world's largest collection of Native American baskets.

More than 250 objects are on view, ranging in size from small Pomo feather baskets made for sale to tourists, to massive Apache olla baskets used for storing large quantities of seeds. Because the works shown have been selected from a remarkably wide-ranging and distinguished collection, visitors will be able to see how the materials, techniques, and designs of the baskets vary from region to region, reflecting different physical environments and traditions. Also evident will be the distinctive styles of individual artists, whose signatures can be instantly recognizable to other weavers. The Autry invited thirteen contemporary basketweavers to serve as consultants in research and planning and purchased a basket from each consultant to add to the permanent collection.

The Art of Native American Basketry is drawn from the nearly 14,000 baskets in the Autry’s Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, considered to be one of the premier holdings of its kind in the world. The exhibition is in the Autry’s Showcase Gallery in Griffith Park.

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