Arts as Culture: Native American Artists

The Wickquasgeck Trail, worn by the Lenape People over hills, through pine, oak, and chestnut woods, across open plains and fast waterways (a natural landscape that seems unimaginable on today’s gridlocked mountain of concrete and steel), stretched 13 miles from the southern tip of Manahatta to upstate New York. The street known as Broadway today roughly follows this Lenape trade route. Noisy and cluttered, bustling with commerce and cultural hot spots, Broadway is also a silent reminder of the precolonial era, the trauma of anti-Native violence, and the forced migration of the Lenape People. 

In the 1930s, as the residents of 97 Orchard Street were preparing for their inevitable eviction during the depths of the Great Depression, Akwesasne and Kahnawa:ke people (of the Mohawk Nation) migrated to New York City for jobs in the extremely dangerous field of high-steel construction. These Mohawk men contributed heavily to the construction of New York City’s most iconic skyscrapers and bridges. Beyond a marvel of architecture, or symbolic of ingenuity and limitless possibility, the New York City Skyline is a bold declaration of Native identity. Yet popular associations of these buildings, roads and bridges eclipse the stories of their Native origins, risking the erasure of the complex and continuous Native histories.  

The Native American history of New York City continues to grow and is maintained by a diverse community of Native People. To lift some of these contemporary stories, The Tenement Museum, in partnership with the American Indian Community House, is highlighting a group of Native Artists and Makers. Their work sets in motion a devotion to history and an impulse toward reinterpretation- at once playful and powerful.  

Beginning in 2019, the Tenement Museum and AICH established a progressive partnership involving relationship-building beyond Land Acknowledgement. By dedicating space for AICH meetings and workshops, and through collaborations on events and projects like this, this partnership is dynamic and mutually beneficial. As the partnership continues to evolve, the Museum is able to offer a more comprehensive cultural and historical understanding of this Land.  

Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, Executive Director of AICH, spoke to us about the role of art in Native American Nations.  “The art reflects elements of their identity,” she said. “It’s clothes or baskets, for example. These are things made for each other and used everyday. This is art to us.”

Native art pushes against hierarchy. What in an “Art World” context would be dismissed as craft is itself worthy of being regarded as art. Contemporary Native Artists and Makers maintain this spirit. Even as their work enters the “Art World” context, the functional root of their creative output remains a central tenet.  

Native Artists, in dialogue with history, carry the past with them, and their work offers new possibilities for understanding contemporary culture. Native identity is explored and poetically reflected through the re-contextualization of “American” pop culture, incorporation of new materials, and performance.  

Simultaneously, the brutality and oppression of colonialism give the work of Native Artists an inherently political subtext. Their continued efforts to create in the face of genocide and disenfranchisement are profound acts of resistance. As with all resistance, there is struggle. “Art feeds the family,” Iakowi:he’ne’ said. “Partnership in trade supports the Artists’ commitment to maintaining the culture. It’s the smallest thing, but it points to actual reciprocity. And it’s about respect.”