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Cynthia Holmes
Blood Memoirs
White Earth Ojibwe artist Cynthia Holmes' birchbark sculptural work is part of "Blood Memoirs," at the Tweed Museum of Art on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. The exhibition continues through March 16.
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Courtesy Amber-Dawn Bear Robe
Blood Memoirs
Naomi Bebo's "Beaded Mask" is part of the exhibition.
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Sue Johnson
Blood Memoirs
Sue Johnson's "Self Portrait of the Artist as Artist Naturalist, Loplop's Sister (after Max Ernst)."
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Courtesy Amber-Dawn Bear Robe
Blood Memoirs
"Blood Memoirs" curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe and filmmaker Chris Eyre. One of Chris' films, "Skins," was shown as part of the exhibition curated by Amber-Dawn.
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Courtesy Amber-Dawn Bear Robe
Blood Memoirs
Amber-Dawn Bear Robe.
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Amber-Dawn Bear Robe on WDSE's "The Playlist"
For curator and art critic Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, the assignment was both challenging and stimulating.
The Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth invited her to explore its permanent collection, to view it through her perspectives as an art curator, a visual fiber artist and woman of the Siksika Nation (Blackfoot) and to create an exhibit that would give visitors the chance to see collection pieces in a new light.
“It is a little bit like Christmas,” Amber-Dawn says of essentially unwrapping what was available among the more than 8,000-piece permanent collection.
At the time of the invitation about three years ago, Amber-Dawn was director of Urban Shaman: Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and has since moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she now a freelance curator. She is originally from Calgary, Alberta, and studied at the Alberta College of Art & Design.
After two years of research, during which she pursued and set aside several potential themes, Amber-Dawn drew together a mixed media exhibition that uses “portraits” to celebrate and explore how we see ourselves and how we see others. She mainly used the Tweed’s permanent collection of paintings, sculptures and other art pieces, but also brought in works from a few additional artists from both Canada and the United States.
“Blood Memoirs: Exploring Individuality, Memory and Culture through Portraiture” continues at the Tweed on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus through March 16.
The exhibition concept went through a couple of incarnations, according to Amber-Dawn. “It’s an invigorating process when you’re curating an exhibition with a permanent collection. Every collection follows the mandate of the museum.”
Amber-Dawn wanted to make the exhibit accessible everyone, “something that could be accessed by the non-scholar … the younger person who maybe knows nothing about art to the art historian. I wanted to do something that made sense to me, something that made sense to the Tweed museum – also respected Duluth, Minnesota. … I also wanted to have fun with the exhibition.”
Part of her mandate was to bring a Native American perspective to the storytelling with the museum’s artworks, but she uses works by artists from across a variety of cultural experiences to fill out her concept of Blood Memoirs. In Amber-Dawn’s curatorial hands, internationally famed artists such as painter Andy Warhol and photographer Anne Leibovitz blend naturally with regional artists such as White Earth Ojibwe artists Frank Big Bear and Cynthia Holmes.
“It’s important for me to not create a ‘ghettoized’ exhibition – but to tell a story that encompasses Native artists within a larger context – highlighting Native artists, but not to cut them off from the world of art and the world of artists.”
Not all of the works are what might be traditionally considered portraits or self-portraits. Cynthia’s multiple-piece birchbark sculptural work – “Primal Donna (Venus Anishinabe)” – shows the unique sense of “Indian humor” woven throughout the exhibition.
“What I want people to take away, first and foremost is an appreciation of the works and artists in the show and to enjoy their experience through a connection to the exhibit in some way … as well as to see one’s self in relation to the Blood Memoirs.”
As she plumbed the Tweed’s permanent collection, first online and later in person, Amber-Dawn reveled in the discovery of artists with whom she was previously unfamiliar. The works of Luis González Palma, a modernist Guatemalan photographer and of White Earth’s Big Bear family were among the treasures, as was the work of Red Cliff Ojibwe artist Rabbitt Before Horses Strickland, whose work hangs outside the main exhibit. She also was thrilled to being able to use the work of an artist she has long admired, Norval Morriseau, a Sand Point Ojibwe man from Ontario who is considered the founder of the Woodland Art movement.
While the entire exhibition is really a reflection of Amber-Dawn through her selection of art, there are a few artworks with which she particularly identifies. “The Inheritance” by Amy Córdova portrays a man and a woman. “You can see the layers of diversity and color suggesting a mixing and blending of cultures,” says Amber-Dawn. “representing myself – my father is full Blackfoot while my mother is non-Native. … There is a unique history and an experience that comes with that.”
One of the pieces that Amber-Dawn brought in to complement the Tweed’s offerings is "Beaded Mask" by Naomi Bebo, which also reflects her own journey, the curator says. The mask “hides who you are, or can create who you are – different layers, different levels.”
Amber-Dawn incorporated bold colors into the exhibition – though she decided to forgo her idea of pink walls behind the works. “I’m going to have a pink-walled exhibition at some point,” she adds with a chuckle.
Because much of her work was done from a long distance, Amber-Dawn herself saw the completed exhibition about the way a visitor would see it. “It was amazing, going in to see the show in its entirety for the first time.”
Now that everything is in place, she admits that distance was one thing she regrets – not for the exhibitions, but for the short time she had to get up-close with the many works of the Tweed’s collection.
“I would have liked to have spent more time with the permanent collections, more time physically … time to absorb and to think about it and the chance to go back.”
Those could be the words of advice for people who can visit the exhibition – take time and perhaps return to absorb these many visions of people and our common – and diverse – human heritage.
Amber-Dawn Bear Robe will be part of a symposium on "Blood Memoirs," 5-8 p.m. March 4 at the Tweed Museum of Art. The exhibition continues through March 16.