DAN
NAMINGHA:
Reflections On The Natural Way
September
16, 2000 - January 7, 2001
The
Reading Public Museum will present an extraordinary
exhibition of Native American artist Dan
Namingha. The exhibition entitled, Dan Namingha:
Reflections on the Natural Way, will open
September 16, 2000 and run through January
7, 2001. An opening celebration will be
held on Saturday, September 16. The celebration
will begin at 5 p.m. with opening remarks
from the artist himself as well as other
dignitaries including Stuart Ashman, Director
of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico. A reception,
sponsored in part by the Friends of the
Reading Museum will follow from 6-8 p.m.
An exhibition catalog and poster will be
available for sale throughout the run of
the exhibit while supplies last.
The
highly compelling art of Dan Namingha celebrates
the enduring landscape of the American Southwest
with an intensely personal vocabulary of
form and color, paying homage to his proud
Tewa-Hopi heritage. Deeply imbedded in his
background and evident in his life and work,
is a profound reverence for the cosmic forces
of the earth's spirit.
Namingha's
work reflects his quest to find meaning
in existence through nature by drawing on
his Native American tradition and revealing
the earth as a reservoir of spiritual power.
Instead of persistently attempting to take
from nature, Namingha strives to achieve
a harmony with her.
Critics
and friends the world over share the view
of Richard West, director of the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of the American
Indian, who called Namingha "one of
the most significant contemporary Native
American Indian artists."
Namingha
was born to a Hopi family in 1950 and was
raised in the village of Polacca, AZ. Namingha
comes from a family of potters and woodcarvers.
His Great Great Grandmother, Nampeyo, is
credited with reviving Hopi pottery making
and design. He studied art at the Institute
of American Indian Arts, the University
of Kansas, and the American Academy of Art
in Chicago. Namingha has studied the work
of such artists as Gaugin, Picasso, Rothko
and de Kooning.
Forever
a student of life and art, Namingha's work
translates the relations between the architecture,
landscape and spiritual imagery of his people.
"All three of those themes," says
Namingha, "go hand in hand in that
they are taken from nature…. These
are the things that I'm familiar with, grew
up with, that surround my childhood and
my adulthood."
Namingha's
work is a medium by which all can gain an
insightful look into Native American culture.
"He gives those of us who look at art
access to a world we would not normally
see, in a language we already understand,"
says Stuart Ashman director of the Museum
of Fine Arts in Santa Fe.
Dan
Namingha: Reflections on the Natural Way,
is the next installment in the Reading Public
Museum's series on the under-appreciated
artist. While Namingha has national and
international acclaim, the Museum hopes
to educate the region in his art and his
culture. The artist will make appearances
at the Museum prior to and throughout the
exhibition run and events are being planned
around his stays.
"I
am in agreement with my contemporaries in
the art community," says Dr. Robert
Metzger, "Dan Namingha's importance
to art, Native American or otherwise, is
irrefutable. The Museum has pulled all the
stops to make the Namingha experience one
this area will not soon forget. Having an
artist of this caliber at the Reading Public
Museum speaks volumes of its commitment
to the arts and the education and enrichment
of its patrons."
Robert
Metzger, Ph.D
Director, CEO, Chief Curator Reading
Public Museum
|
