The visual arts speak about personal issues, political concerns and history. At Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, the current exhibition takes on these facets from the perspective of Native American artists using a variety of media and crafts.
The nine artists in this exhibition, “Native Voices,” offer commentary that ranges from subtle to overt. Displayed in the gallery’s expansive front windows is Valaria M. Tatera’s installation, Kill the Indian Save the Man: My Family Story (Save, Kill). Two pedestals hold handcuff-like shackles created in clay, gathered in small mounds. While one pedestal is inscribed SAVE on its edge, and the other KILL, both have the word DESERTER printed in typewritten font on their surface. The combination of an implement of captivity and the similarity in the displays suggests perceptions have more to do with outcomes, such as preservation or death, rather than tangible reasons.
While Tatera’s work is rather esoteric in its presence, Bernard C. Perley’s drawings are sharply direct. Working in the form of comic art, Perley’s characters address situations like the first Thanksgiving from a Native American point of view. Indians Discover Columbus also connects the past to present. In succinct frames, the characters of the native people voice concerns over the new European arrivals, describing their worries and hoping that they are at least “civilized.” In the current climate of xenophobic rhetoric, these images and words have even stronger resonance.
Jason Northern’s Nindoodem awsiinhwag focuses on the presentation of various characteristics and images associated with a range of native tribes in the Wisconsin area. In banners of unbleached cloth, totemic animals are pictured in elegant line drawings. A proud crane stands over one, which is dedicated to the Ojibwe and Menominee and qualities of leadership and external communication.
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Portrait photographs by Nora Moore Lloyd are quiet and affecting as she records her subjects in black and white. Each is titled with the person’s name and tribe, and in these images she captures a sense of them as individuals, as well as their identity as part of a larger history and longstanding culture reflected in a fleeting moment.
Through May 19 at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, 839 S. Fifth St.
