Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a pioneering artist and curator who died in 1985 in 1985, had many first in her name.
For example, she was the first native American artist who won the work acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2020. But she was not interested in being an exception. When I interviewed her at the American Museum of the Whitney Museum, which was the first retrospective exhibition of native artists organized by the facility, she interviewed her, “I broke the barrier and broke the barrier. She opened the door and acknowledged that she was opening the crack. “
Despite her humility, there is no doubt that Smith was unique. She was an expressive painter and an enthusiastic choragist. She drew a combination of ancient petroglyph, native bead work, John Mitchell painting, and Robert Trauschemberg. She used images of indigenous people, such as canoe and buffalo, and Warhol used soups and Marilyn Monroe. By doing so, Smith claimed his status as a symbol of the people. It reminded me that the roots of the United States were native.
The interconnection was the principle of supporting her life and work. It came from her Salish Heritage: She was born in Montana in FlatHead Reservation, and was a registered member of Salish and Kotenai Nation of the South Army. Smith's father was a horse trader, and she often talked about seeing himself in his pedigree. She said, “I was participating in educational trade and intellectual transactions, but my father was absorbed in the transaction of horses, and my grandmother drove the salt drained in Canada and traded with the Metis/Cry people. I did it, “she explained in a whitney catalog interview. “Everything is to share useful products and property to improve other people's lives, but we also bring profits to each other. That is our cultural mission.”
Smith told his fellow artists a note of encouragement, lecture, and write. It also meant group organization, financing campaign, and exhibitions. She did not ask for permission to do these things, and always didn't know what she was trying to do. Instead, she adopted the phrase that his father was saying: “When the spirit moves me.”
One story is useful. As Smith said, shortly after joining the Council of the American Indian Research Institute, a Native American school, she began to fear that the Federal Indian Bureau, which operated the research institute, would close it. I did it.
So she flew to Washington DC, where she was able to connect with the staff members of the parliament who wrote legislation to change the laboratory into a non -profit organization. Later, it was introduced as a revision of the lower house education bill. Smith supports the organizationalization of a letter writing campaign that supports the passed bill in 1986. The institute still exists today.
If this sounds like a hero story, that's not the case. Smith was very humble, so it was almost troublesome, considering how much she accomplished in her life. She used them as an explanation instead of talking about the story problem and boasting. But she told them because she wanted the people to know her.
She curated more than 30 exhibitions in her career in collaboration with solo. Among them, there was “Sweet Glass, Cedar, Sage Women”, a landmark show of contemporary art by a native American woman who opened in the American Indian Community House in New York in 1985 (Native Arts non -profit Fourge. He wrote the executive director of the project, the candy hopkins, “Women in Sweet Glass” and “I made my own work as a curator.”
The Smith's final curation project, “The Identity of the Inhabitants,” featuring 90 living native artists, opened on February 1 at the Demarial Tales Museum of New Branzwick, New Jersey. A small exhibition of her own work is on display along with it.
In our conversation, Smith has expressed concern that her work may look old, especially in consideration of the current aesthetic environment. And her paintings can look like a rustic pallet, prints and sculptures, as if they were a flourished scenery of modern native art. However, Smith's art is powerful. It is urgent, and its gaze is fluctuating.
Smith's message can be strict, like a series of paintings that were made on September 11 after the invasion of Iraq in the United States. The skull, body, debris mountain. But they may be full of hope: 10 years later, the mountain has become a platform for a powerful female leader of “Speaker” (2015). But for me, Smith's message is the strongest when it is humorous. She laughed easily in conversation, was drawn frequently, and called the Salish mythology teacher and trickstar's Koyote in her work.
One of my favorite series is Smith's “Paper doll for the postcolombian world” (1991). These watercolor paintings and graphite painting depicts some of the most likely costumes of the Jesuits of the Jesuits, Ken, Barbie, and his son's blues. The work looks simple, bright, and cheerful until you read the text written by your clothes and betray the ominous tone. Another thing shows a “flat head headdress that white (original) is collected to decorate the house.” “Paper doll” is a biting commentary on native American massacre, but it is still interesting.
At the recruitment of Smith's Whitney, “Paper dolls” were displayed from Kinmen Tennial projects that arrived in Christopher Columbus's Bahamas, along with Effira. Smith and several other native artists and activists gathered in the early 1990s, formed a society (“Columbus” spelled back), and then competed in celebration stories that were pushed out by the US government. did. Many actions and projects came from the efforts of the “paper dolls” to the two exhibits she curated.
In other words, she developed her art. For Smith, it was one big process to build a network. Mutual connection. She said, while we were in the Whitney gallery, watching her life work. That's what I am active. “
