Art Protesting Stereotypes

I chose to read the article “Native Americans are recasting views of indigenous life” by Tristan Ahtone. I thought this article was very interesting, and it had an important message about native american stereotypes. I decided to read it because I recently saw an art exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas that had a very similar message, which I thought was very powerful when portrayed through art. The exhibit was called “Art For a New Understanding.” All of the pieces were created by native american artists with the goal of combating stereotypes about native americans, just like we see in the article. I think that art, whether it be visual or performative, is a really effective and peaceful way of spreading important cultural messages. This can be seen both in this article and in the exhibit I saw. Typically, art does not offend people as much as a speech or social media post has the potential to, while it is also a very eye catching and memorable way of spreading a message. There was an art piece at the museum that really caught my attention and that I think effectively supports this point. It was a large painting of a canoe, made up of a collage of newspaper prints and book pages that represented different stereotypes of native americans. In addition, a bunch of objects that represented other offensive stereotypes were strung across the top of the painting. I thought that this piece was very powerful because, while it spoke about the issue of native american stereotypes as a whole, it also pointed out specific ones. I think that this painting, along with many others both listed in the article and at this exhibit have really important message and are doing a very effective job of spreading it. I think that if more people voiced their anger, frustration, protests, etc. peacefully through art as these artists have done, it would actually get more attention from the general public, while not drawing as much negative criticism. Art with a message also has a way of sticking inside your mind, which is exactly what people want if they have a message to spread.

Source:

Ahtone, Tristan. “Native Americans are recasting views of indigenous life.” National Geographic, n.d. Web. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/12/native-americans-recasting-views-indigenous-life/. Accessed 9 December 2018.

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