A lawyer has convinced a Paris judge to hold a hearing Thursday to determine the legality of a sale of sacred Hopi Indian artifacts by the Néret-Minet auction house that is scheduled for Friday.
The lawyer from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Pierre Servan-Schreiber, said he was acting in a pro bono capacity after having been contacted by Survival International, a global nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of native tribes.
Mr. Servan-Schreiber said he told the judge that the items should not be sold until it can be determined whether they were stolen from Hopi lands, as the Arizona-based tribe believes, or were the objects of sales that violated American and international law.
Efforts to look into the history of the 70 items, he said, would be rendered “virtually impossible” once they were scattered among multiple buyers. He said a delay would “preserve evidence.”
Mr. Servan-Schreiber also argued that the sale is illegal under an old prohibition in French law that bars the sale of “non-commercial” things that are seen as “immoral to sell.” The Hopis say the artifacts, ceremonial masks and headdresses known as Katsinam, or “friends,” embody divine spirits and are purely religious. They say selling them is a sacrilege.
A spokeswoman for the auction house said it was aware of the ruling but she would not comment further. Gilles Néret-Minet, the director of the house, has said repeatedly that he will not delay the $1 million sale. He has said the collector who put the items up for sale obtained them all legally.
The United States Embassy in Paris has also asked the auctioneers to delay the sale “given the ancestry of these masks and the distance between Paris and the Hopi reservation.”
Six life-size wood figures shouldering a 300-year-old canoe command the most attention among the exhibits at the new Suquamish Museum and Cultural Center on the west shore of Puget Sound.
Carved from cedar, the figures morph from a pair of sea otters in the rear to tribal ancestors in the middle and to modern people up front. The sculpture symbolizes the carrying of the tribe’s canoe culture forward through time.
The second new tribal museum in Washington to open in two years, the $7.5 million Suquamish Museum is on the Port Madison Indian Reservation near Poulsbo on the Kitsap Peninsula. Its opening last September followed the 2011 opening of the Tulalip Tribe’s Hibulb Cultural Center near Marysville.
The Northwest tribal museums, which include showcase displays in Oregon near Pendleton and at Warm Springs, offer travelers the chance to connect with the rich native culture that predated exploration and settlement by European Americans.
The Suquamish Museum is a short walk from the gravesite of Chief Sealth, the tribal elder who cooperated with Americans when they settled Puget Sound in the 1850s. Seattle is named for the Suquamish chief.
The museum’s small but impressive exhibits feature woodworking, baskets and beadwork. The 9,000-square-foot building, in the style of a traditional longhouse, has a performance space, museum store, plus an art gallery that features the work of 20 tribal artists, including intricate masks in the coastal Salish style.The surrounding grounds are landscaped with native plants. Nearby houses will be removed when leases expire to further enhance the tribe’s cultural district as a learning center. The tribe’s Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort is one mile south.
The House of Awakened Culture, an indoor tribal event center, is just north of the museum on the waterfront. Seattle’s highest buildings are in view across the Salish Sea, the name bestowed recently on all the inland waters of Washington and lower British Columbia.
The new museum is three times the size of the tribe’s previous cultural display.
The Suquamish Museum address is 6861 N.E. South St., on the east side of S.R. 307 just north of its intersection with S.R. 305 (the highway with the only bridge to Bainbridge Island). The museum is open daily (except some holidays) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 360-394-8499, suquamishmuseum.org.
A traditional salmon bake outside the Museum at Warm Springs. Terry Richard/The Oregonian
Other tribal museums in Oregon and Washington Warm Springs: The Museum at Warm Springs features the Wasco, Walla Walla and Paiute tribes of central and eastern Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge. The 25,000-square-foot building opened in 1993. It is located along U.S. 26 in Warm Springs, between Mount Hood and central Oregon, with the relocated Indian Head Casino across the highway; 541-553-3331, museumatwarmsprings.org. Umatilla: Tamástslikt Cultural Institute tells the story of the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes of northeast Oregon and southeast Washington in a 45,000-square-foot building that opened in 1998. It also has an outdoor living-history exhibit during summer. The museum is near Wildhorse Resort and Casino, just east of Pendleton; 541-966-9748, tcimuseum.com.
Makah: Most artifacts in the Makah Museum at Neah Bay, Wash., come from a nearby archaeological dig on the Olympic Peninsula coast at Ozette. The 24,000-square-foot Makah Cultural and Research Center was built as the repository and display site for the 11-year dig, from 1970 to 1981, which uncovered 55,000 artifacts from a 500-year-old village preserved by a massive mudslide; 360-645-2711, makah.com.
Squaxin Island: The 15,000-square-foot Squaxin Island Museum opened in 2002 with an exhibit of the Salish tribes of southern Puget Sound, the “people of the water.” The museum is just off U.S. 101 near Shelton, Wash.; 360-432-3839, squaxinislandmuseum.org.
Tulalip: The 23,000-square-foot Hibulb Cultural Center, which opened in 2011, tells the story of the Snohomish, Snoqualmie and Skykomish tribes of the northern Puget Sound area. Its location is Tulalip, Wash., not far off Interstate 5; 360-716-2600, hibulbculturalcenter.org.
Yakama: The Yakama Nation Museum opened in 1980 with a 12,000-square-foot exhibit hall that tells the story of central Washington tribes, as well as famous chiefs from other tribes. The museum is along U.S. 97 at Toppenish, Wash.; 509-865-2800, yakamamuseum.com.
Chairman Mel Sheldon swears in Marie Zackuse and Theresa Sheldon to the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors Photo: Monica Brown
By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer
TULALIP, Wash.- Family and friends arrived early Saturday morning, April 6th, at the Tulalip Administration building to witness the swearing in of Marie M. Zackuse and Theresa Sheldon to the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors.
Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors, Chuck James, Theresa Sheldon, Glen Gobin, Melvin R. Sheldon Jr, Marlin Fryberg Jr, Marie M. Zackuse, Deborah Parker Photo: Monica Brown
Marie M. Zackuse thanks the board for welcoming her back as she takes her seat on the Services Committee of the Board Photo: Monica Brown
As Zackuse was welcomed to take her seat on the Services Committee along side Deborah Parker and Marlin Fryberg Jr, she responded, “I want to thank each and everyone that came today, my family and my elders.”
“I’m very grateful today that the Creator provided this opportunity once again for me and I will do the best that I can with what I know and what I have. I want to thank everybody who helped me”
New board member Theresa Sheldon thanks the board as they welcome her on the Business Committee of the board Photo: Monica Brown
“There are just so many inspirational elders and people in our community who helped encourage me to get to this point where I am today” said Sheldon as she took her seat along side Glen Gobin and Chuck James on the Business Committee.”It ‘s the beginning of a new journey and I am truly honored to be here and assist with this board of directors.”
“I’m very thankful for this and I’m excited to get work done”
Zackuse and Sheldon were elected March 16th 2013, at the Annual General Council meeting, they will both serve three year terms.
This year’s TL’aneq’ benefit dinner includes a live fashion show by international designer Dorothy Grant
Ryan Key-Wynne, Public Information Officer, Northwest Indian College
International designer Dorothy Grant, who is Kaigani Haida from Alaska, will host a live fashion show at Northwest Indian College’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Grant’s unique style combines traditional Haida artwork with contemporary clothing for an effect that has gained her worldwide acclaim. Photo courtesy of Dorothy Grant
On April 12, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) will host its 5th Annual TL’aneq’: Gathering for a Celebration benefit dinner and Native cultural arts and experiences auction from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Swinomish Casino & Lodge. The event is the college’s biggest fundraising event of the year and – this year – will also celebrate NWIC’s 30th anniversary.
“I am truly looking forward to this year’s TL’aneq’ benefit dinner. This is a great opportunity to celebrate Coast Salish art and culture and share a meal and laughter, all while raising money to support our students,” NWIC President Justin Guillory said. “This has been a successful event, and we want to continue to build on that success by bringing friends and supporters of NWIC together in a good way for a good cause.”
The evening will begin with a silent auction, during which attendees will have a chance to bid on Coast Salish art – including paintings, carvings, jewelry and woven pieces – and they can speak directly with artists who have donated their work for the event. After that, a four-course dinner featuring fresh salmon, storytelling, a live fashion show and live auction will begin.
“You never know what will happen during the live auction,” said Ryan Key-Wynne, NWIC’s public information officer. “Last year, one of our supporters commandeered the mic and pleaded with others in the room to bid with her on a cultural experience. She said the experience would be a good opportunity to make new friends.”
Key-Wynne explained that bidding is usually competitive, with people bidding against each other, not with each other.
“Our auctioneer just stood there laughing, waiting for her to hand the mic back,” Key-Wynne said. “It was unprecedented, but very funny and the combined bid raised more than she would have contributed on her own.”
Coast Salish artists are the backbone of the TL’aneq’ fundraiser. Art, including this carving by Steven Charlie of the Squamish Nation, is donated by the artists each year and all of the profits help support a selected NWIC project or program. This year, all funds raised will go toward scholarships for NWIC students. Photo courtesy of NWIC
This year’s live auction will be preceded by a fashion show by international designer Dorothy Grant, who is Kaigani Haida from Alaska. Grant’s unique style combines traditional Haida artwork with contemporary clothing for an effect that has gained her worldwide acclaim.
“We are honored that Dorothy Grant will be joining our efforts at the college’s premier gala. Her fashion show willbe a lot of fun, especially with our student models,” said Greg Masten, director of NWIC’s Development Office, which organizes the event.
Last year, the event raised nearly $100,000, which helped NWIC match a $500,000 award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the college’s new Coast Salish Institute Building.
Funds from this year’s event will go toward supporting NWIC student scholarships. NWIC, which is the only tribal college in Washington and Idaho, has a student body that represents more than 120 tribes from across the nation.
“It’s a misconception that Native students get their education paid for.Scholarships mean a lot to our students, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college and who are working toward four and two year degrees so they can help their tribal communities,” Masten said.
Individual tickets are available for $250 or table sponsorships are available from $2,500 to $20,000.
NWIC would like to thank sponsors for the 5h Annual TL’aneq:
·Premier Sponsor: Lummi Indian Business Council
·Host Sponsor: Swinomish Tribe
·Exclusive Reception Sponsor: Tulalip Tribes
·Lengesot Patron Sponsors at the $5,000 level: the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, and the Snoqualmie Tribe
·Cedar Sponsors at the $2,500 level: The Boeing Company, Puget Sound Energy, Morgan Stanley, and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe
NWIC would also like to acknowledge and thank Judy Mich for her continued generosity of a $15,000 sponsorship, and give a special thanks to the generosity of the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians.
For more information, to donate to the event or to buy a ticket or sponsor a table, contact Development Office staff Mariah Dodd at (360) 392-4217 or mariahd@nwic.edu or Colleen Baker at (360) 392- 4305 or cbaker@nwic.edu.
Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery poses a photographic puzzle with “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,’ a wide-ranging show exploring cultural attitudes about beauty, running through Sept. 1, 2013.
By Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times
Frank A. Rinehart “Hattie Tom, Apache” (1899), platinum print
What is beauty? How do concepts of beauty change? And who possesses beauty — those who observe it or those who are observed?
These are among the questions raised in “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,” a new exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery, curated by Deborah Willis, the first scholar to take part in the Henry’s new Visiting Fellow Program.
Willis is a historian of African-American photography who teaches at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she serves as professor and chair of photography and imaging. A few years ago, the Henry invited her to pore through its holdings and those of the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, with the idea of exploring “different attitudes about and cultural interpretations of beauty.”
“Out [o] Fashion Photography” is the result. It’s a big show that weighs how men photograph women, how women photograph men, how photographers turn their lenses on members of the own sex or people of other races, and, finally, how some artists — Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, the amazing Janieta Eyre — translate themselves into the most unlikely photographic icons.
As the exhibit’s punning title suggests, it deals with how ideals of beauty can go out of style, while also acknowledging the role fashion has played in shaping our concept of beauty. Wildly diverse in content, it asks viewers to draw their own connections more than it spells anything out for them.
Willis has divided it into three “thematic groupings,” although she cautions in her catalog essay that “there is overlap throughout, and many images can be discussed in multiple categories.”
If that sounds vague to the point of being unhelpful, it is.
The exhibit is better approached as a free-associative romp through the Henry/UW collections by someone with a curious eye. One question that gets raised again and again, in all three sections, is: Who is exploiting whom in the photographic process?
Willis starts off with works by Edward S. Curtis, whose passion about documenting vanishing Native American cultures may have overridden a more personal connection between the photographer and his subject.
Still, Curtis’ “Two Moons — Cheyenne” (1910) is a fine thing to behold, catching the essence of the war chief’s proud, weathered character. Frank A. Rinehart’s “Hattie Tom, Apache” (1899) tells a different story: The look of skepticism the young woman levels at the camera is withering.
Honest portraiture is one thing. Voyeurism is another.
The voyeuristic norm — of a male eye trained on a female form for purposes of arousal — seems most vividly and straightforwardly represented by E.J. Bellocq’s “Storyville Portrait” (c. 1912). But in other works, things get more complicated.
Don Wallen’s “Untitled” (1976), with its live female nude draped around a plastic-white mannequin, seems to comment on how synthetic some ideals of female beauty can be. Harry Callahan’s gorgeous silhouette shot of his wife, “Eleanor” (1948), uses photographic artifice to create something intimate, loving and mysterious.
Willis includes some actual fashion photography, including items by Hans L. Jorgensen and Irving Penn, where women are idealized by the camera, surely with their own full cooperation. And in shots of famous actresses — Cecil Beaton’s “Marlene Dietrich” (1930) and Benjamin J. Falk’s “Portrait of Miss Rush, the Actress” (c. 1892/1897) — there’s little doubt that the models are shaping their own images as much as the photographer is. “Miss Rush,” in her bow-tie, jacket, vest and trousers, is a dapper gender-bender. Dietrich, here, is in pure glamour-queen mode.
The male figure, if a bit underrepresented, isn’t neglected in “Out [o] Fashion.”
Jack Pierson’s gauzy “Belvedere Clayton” (1992) portrays a dreamy young man, swaddled in a nightshirt, sprawled back in bed and gazing at the camera. There’s something so swooning and heady about his pose that he seems made of gossamer. George Dureau’s black male nude, “Glen Thompson, Rear” (1983), on the other hand, couldn’t be more directly carnal.
In some cases, subjects’ actions, more than their looks, lend a true hypnotic allure to their images. That’s the case with Lewis Wickes Hine’s “Powerhouse Mechanic” (1921) and Barbara Morgan’s “Martha Graham — Letter to the World” (1940), which are slyly juxtaposed in the show.
There’s fine work here that seemingly has nothing to do with Willis’ chosen theme. Weegee’s masterpiece “The Critic” (1943), in which a Bowery character snarls at two preening operagoers, is surely less about beauty than hostilities between two social worlds, while Lisette Model’s “Famous Gambler, Nice” (1934) comes off as a pure character study, with little thought about the attractiveness of its subject (although the photograph itself is certainly handsomely composed).
Diane Arbus’ “A Woman in a Bird Mask, N.Y.C.” (1967) delights in how artifice can triumph over age and take a turn for the beautiful-fantastical. But in Arbus’ “A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, New York” (1968), it’s the total disconnect between husband, wife and child that rivets you far more than the incidental detail of the sunbathing mom’s classic, brittle 1960s looks.
Some of these puzzling inclusions might benefit from more commentary by Willis on individual photographs. Without that, the exhibition is mostly what you choose to make of it.
One thing for sure: There are plenty of photographic riches here — including work by Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Edward J. Steichen and many others — to make something from.
A movie review of “Room 237,” subtitled “An Inquiry Into ‘The Shining’ in 9 Parts.” Rodney Ascher’s fascinating documentary examines Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film from the divergent perspectives of five obsessive interpreters.
By Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times
The subtitle of “Room 237” is “Being an Inquiry Into ‘The Shining’ in 9 Parts,” and Rodney Ascher’s fascinating documentary subjects Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic (based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel) to intense scrutiny that ranges from critically astute to far-fetched absurdity.
The title of Ascher’s inquiry is taken from the Overlook Hotel, the haunted setting of King’s novel and Kubrick’s film. A forbidden place where unspeakable horrors occurred, Room 237 is just one of many mysteries that leave Kubrick’s film so enticingly open to interpretation.
Ascher invited five obsessive viewers to share their divergent observations about Kubrick’s film. Heard but never seen, their thoughts are accompanied by extensive clips from “The Shining” and dozens of other films, from the sci-fi cheesiness of “The Brain from Planet Arous” to the challenging formalism of “Last Year in Marienbad.”
If the result is best appreciated by serious cinephiles, so be it: “Room 237” is an act of uncommon devotion to cinema, embracing the notion that movies are best defined by what happens to us as we watch them — how our own beliefs and experiences dictate our interpretation of what we’ve seen and heard. At a time when analytical film essays are abundant on YouTube, “Room 237” acknowledges (to paraphrase one participant) that movies can yield interpretations far beyond the filmmaker’s artistic intentions.
Kubrick encouraged such interpretive latitude (especially with regard to “2001”), so when “Room 237” views “The Shining” through prisms of Native American genocide, the Holocaust, architectural oddities, numerology and even the ludicrous suggestion that Kubrick faked the Apollo moon landing on film, it’s a safe bet that Kubrick (who died in 1999) would be delighted with Ascher’s film. It confirms a work of importance and lasting value, which is all any serious artist can hope for.
GWYNETH ROBERTS/Lincoln Journal Star 1491s member Bobby Wilson (center) dances for the camera as Native Youth Leadership Symposium Participants (rear) watch during production of a public service announcement video Tuesday, April 2, 2013, at Morrill Hall.
The guerrilla Native filmmakers and comedy troupe came to Lincoln on Tuesday to help participants of the Sovereign Native Youth Leadership program shoot a video. The Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs hosted the 1491s’ visit and sponsors the youth program — high school students from Nebraska’s four tribes learning to be leaders.
Last week, to prepare for the 1491s’ visit, the students brainstormed ideas. But on Tuesday, the five members of the 1491s struggle to get students to share them.
Goldtooth, one of the group’s founders, tells students the filmmakers are there to help them find their voice.
“You dictate the direction,” he says.
Ryan Red Corn, an Osage member of the 1491s, shares the story of a young woman they met at a Native boarding school who told them about briefly escaping the school to retrieve berries from a nearby tree. The 1491s made a video about it.
The 1491s have lampooned everything from the movie “The Last of the Mohicans” to powwow emcees, and they’ve gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube.
Despite their popularity, at least two Native students haven’t seen their work.
As the morning wears on, the students begin opening up, a little at a time.
Two brothers from Winnebago speak about their dad, who once struggled with alcoholism but quit after his children were born. They talk about losing their uncle to cirrhosis, a liver disease prevalent in alcoholics.
“Top that,” student Skyler Walker says, daring the others to beat his story and eliciting laughter.
So how does a mixed bag of comedians and filmmakers get shy Native students to open up? Red Corn says it’s important to make them laugh and see themselves as important.
The 1491s spend much of Tuesday making each other laugh, poking fun at Red Corn for being half white and Goldtooth for enjoying food too much.
Eventually, they begin teasing the students, including Skyler and his brother Max, who are half Ho-Chunk and half white. The boys call themselves “half chunks.”
“Half chunk 1 and half chunk 2,” the 1491s call them.
Then they turn on each other: “Osage sounds like a drunk person speaking Dakota,” Goldtooth says to Red Corn.
But then, just a little, the tone of their conversation shifts.
As he talks about his love of gourd dancing in the Omaha tribal tradition, student Marco Ramos cuts short a conversation between Red Corn and comedian Bobby Wilson.
“Quit holding hands and pay attention,” he says, as the room erupts in applause and laughter.
Later at lunch, Scott Shafer of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs describes how difficult it has been getting the students to open up to the presenters they have heard since the program began its second year this past fall. So often, students have struggled to connect to policymakers and professionals, he says.
That wasn’t the case Tuesday as the students and the 1491s developed ideas for their video on alcoholism.
One student describes adults who tell her not to drink but who then drink themselves.
Somewhere in the room, an idea flickers.
Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, who has directed several movies and documentaries, offers an idea that involves the students making the video’s viewers believe they were talking about using drugs and alcohol.
“It helps me forget my worries,” Cheyenne Gottula, an Oglala who attends Lincoln High School, says before the camera. “My mom’s the one who got me into it.”
Then, the reveal.
“I like playing volleyball.”
Reach Kevin Abourezk at 402-473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.
70 sacred Hopi masks that are set to be auctioned in France are estimated to be worth $1 million. The New York Times reports, the auction is set for April 12th at Néret-Minet auction house. Néret-Minet states that the items were legally obtained over 30 years ago and that this auction should be considered a homage to the Hopi Indians and they should be happy so many people want to understand and analyze their civilization.
“The Hopi Tribe is just disgusted with the continued offensive marketing of Hopi culture.” The Hopi Tribe has attempted to contact the auction house with no luck and has sought legal council on possible ways to bring the masks back to their rightful owners, The Hopi Tribe.
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