Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

Back in 2017, the Briscoe Museum’s CEO, Michael Duchemin, traveled to Norman, OK, to see an exhibit that he thought might be right for the Briscoe. It was called Visual Voices: Contemporary Chickasaw Art and it was presented by the Fred Jones Jr. Museum on the campus of the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

He quickly decided that it was indeed a good show for his Western Art Museum, here in San Antonio.

“Western art is divided into two major sub-categories,” explained Duchemin. “One of them is the traditional Western style focusing on cowboys & Indians and wildlife as main themes. That traditional Western art is today represented by the Cowboy Artists of America. The other category is what we call contemporary Western art, and within that, a group called the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) was formed in Santa Fe in 1962 to teach young American Indian artists to move away from traditional forms like weaving and pottery, and embrace modern art forms – abstraction, impressionism, pop art and other emerging forms. Those artists basically opened up a new world of envisioning Western art.”

The Visual Voices show embodies that new vision of Western/American Indian art that the Briscoe would like to see more of under its own roof. Featuring the work of 15 Chickasaw artists and nearly 60 works, the exhibit opens Sept. 25 and runs through Jan. 18, 2021.

One of the most prominent artists in the show is Brenda Kingery, a long-time San Antonio resident, who has deep Chickasaw roots through her father’s side of the family. In 2007, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of trustees of the IAIA in Santa Fe, and in 2019 she was inducted into the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame.

Growing up in Oklahoma, Kingery often spent time with her Chickasaw grandmother who told her a multitude of stories about their family and tribe. But the event that profoundly impressed her and influenced the direction of her career as an artist happened later, when she was already a married woman, living in Texas. It started with a phone call from her mother telling her that a major, multi-tribe pow-wow was about to happen in her area, and encouraging Brenda to visit for the occasion.   

At the celebration, several thousand tribal dancers from different tribes displayed their festive regalia in a huge arena, chanting and rocking to the sound of drums. “I can’t tell you how exciting that was,” said the artist. “I just sat down and cried. That was in 1990, and that’s when I started painting abstract versions of what I had seen, looking at the photographs that Tom (her husband) took. Then we went back year after year to visually record the dances. My paintings are abstract renditions of the dances.”

More recently, when the Visual Voices artists traveled to Mississippi for the opening of the show at the Museum of Modern Art in Jackson, they also rented cars to visit the old homeland of the Chickasaw where the tribe lived before being pushed out west following the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. For the first time, Kingery was able to see where her ancestor from seven generations ago, was buried. That profoundly meaningful experience is spurring new inspiration for her work, she noted.

There are five Kingery paintings in the current show. Other artists in the exhibition include sculptor Joanna Underwood Blackburn, fiber artist Margaret Roach Wheeler, painter Brent Greenwood, bladesmith Dan Worcester, and jeweler/blacksmith Kristen Dorsey. These five were also the initiators of the entire project, said project manager Laura Clark, who was hired by them to work on logistics, a business plan, contracts, and other aspects of organizing the tour that’s now been on the road for a couple of years. In fact, the Briscoe is the last venue to host Voices.  

Curated by Manuela Well-Off-Man and Karen Whitecotton, Visual Voices is the first ever touring exhibition of Chickasaw art, said Clark, though “the Chickasaw Nation is very proactive in its work to exhibit contemporary art by Chickasaw artists, both in solo exhibitions and group shows… The leadership of the Nation has been so generous in its support of our work; they care deeply about their people, the perseverance of their culture, and the future of Native American arts.”

All art is available for sale and several pieces have already been purchased at previous tour stops though they remain in the show. One large installation is not going to be displayed at the Briscoe, however, since it was purchased by the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. “It was a beautifully handwoven textile work stretching from floor to ceiling, that the artist created using an ancient technique called sprang,” explained Clark. The stunning piece made by Tyra Shackelford was so unique that the Smithsonian commissioned an identical replica of it.

 Duchemin hopes that Visual Voices will spur other projects that showcase contemporary American Indian art because he would like to see the still-young Briscoe eventually excel in that area. The show is expected to bring in new audiences as well, despite COVID restrictions which force the museum to operate at 50% capacity. Among events connected to the show is a virtual talk with the two curators and the Briscoe’s director of education Ryan Badger, on Sept. 26 at 11 a.m. (free for museum members; $10 for nonmembers).

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The Briscoe Western Art Museum is open every day, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. It’s located on the River Walk, near the Arneson River Theater. www.briscoemuseum.org.