The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology on view at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery from February 14 through July 7, 2019, explores the hidden histories and complex legacies of one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897). Organized by Bard Graduate Center Gallery in partnership with U’mista Cultural Centre, a Kwakwaka’wakw museum in Alert Bay, British Columbia, the exhibition is curated by Aaron Glass, associate professor at Bard Graduate Center, and features designs by artist Corrine Hunt, a great-granddaughter of George Hunt.
The exhibit’s launch is accompanied by a series of events that explore contemporary indigenous creative practice and raise questions around representation, colonialism and cultural history. A full list of these activities can be found below.
Curator’s Spotlight Tour
The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt, and the Making of Anthropology
Saturday, February 16
12–1 pm
Adults $8; Students/Seniors $5
18 West 86th Street, Gallery
Join curator Aaron Glass and artist Corrine Hunt on Saturday, February 16th at 12 pm for a lively tour of the exhibition. Focusing on Boas’s work with his Indigenous co-author George Hunt among the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw people of British Columbia, the exhibition—with designs by Corrine Hunt—features ceremonial objects as well as archival photographs, manuscripts, and drawings that shed new light on the book and advance understanding of the ongoing cultural traditions it documents.
Aaron Glass is an Associate Professor at Bard Graduate Center, whose areas of special interest include museums and anthropology, colonialism and indigenous modernities, and intercultural encounter, exchange, and agency.
Corrine Hunt, also known as Nugwam Gelatleg’lees, is an Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw/Tlingit artist, carver, jeweller and designer based in British Columbia, Canada.
Conversation
Creative Practice in Indigenous Communities
Wednesday, February 20
6:30–8 pm
Adults $8; Seniors/Students $5
18 West 86th Street, Gallery
Featuring artists, Patrick Dean Hubbell, Corrine Hunt and Skeena Reece. Moderated by one of our spring artists in residence Maria Hupfield.
Patrick Dean Hubbell is Dine’ (Navajo). He is originally from Navajo, New Mexico, located near the Northeast region of the Arizona/New Mexico border of the Navajo Nation. Working primarily in acrylic and often in oils, the artist finds inspiration in everything surrounding landscape and various themes rooted in the correlation in his Native American traditions and contemporary lifestyle.
Corrine Hunt, also known as Nugwam Gelatleg’lees, is an Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw/Tlingit artist, carver, jeweller and designer based in British Columbia, Canada. Corrine’s works include engraved gold and silver jewelry and accessories, custom furnishings in carved stainless steel and reclaimed wood, modern totem poles and other sculptural installations.
Skeena Reece is a Tsimshian/Gitksan and Cree artist based on the West Coast of British Columbia. She has gained national profile in recent years as one of the talents in “Beat Nation,” a touring exhibition on hip-hop and Aboriginal communities. Her multidisciplinary practice includes performance art, spoken word, humor, “sacred clowning,” writing, music, video and visual art.
Based in Brooklyn, Maria Hupfield (b.1975) is a citizen of the Anishinaabek Nation from Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, Canada. Her work has shown in New York at the Museum of Arts and Design, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Brooklyn Museum. Together with artist Jason Lujan, she co-owns Native Art Department International in New York.
Film Screening
In the Land of the Head Hunters live scored by Laura Ortman
Friday, March 8
6:30 pm
Adults $15; Seniors/Students $10
38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall
In the Land of the Head Hunters (dir. Edward S. Curtis, 1914, USA, 65 minutes) was the first feature film made in British Columbia and is the oldest extant feature made in Canada. It’s also the first feature made with an entirely indigenous North American cast. A portrait of the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw people of northern Vancouver Island and the central coast, it was directed by Edward S. Curtis, the renowned American photographer of First Nations life. The film mixes documentary and dramatic elements, recording authentic traditions and rituals, including the potlatch ceremony.
This screening will be live scored by musician and composer, Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), a Brooklyn based composer, musician and artist. Ortman plays violin, Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, pedal steel guitar, sings through a megaphone, and makes field recordings. Ortman has performed all over the world as venues including Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Museum of the American Indian, MoMA P.S. 1, Centre Pompidou, SF MoMA, and Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Conversation
Indigenous Experience at World’s Fairs
Wednesday, April 10
6:30–8 pm
Adults $8; Seniors/Students $5
18 West 86th Street, Gallery
Featuring Lee D. Baker, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and African and African American Studies at Duke University, Laura Graham, Professor of Anthropology at The University of Iowa, and Aaron Glass, Professor at Bard Graduate Center.
Lee D. Baker is Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and African and African American Studies at Duke University. His books include From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race , 1896-1954 (1998), Life in America: Identity and Everyday Experience (2003), and Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture (2010).
Aaron Glass is an Associate Professor at Bard Graduate Center, whose areas of special interest include museums and anthropology, colonialism and indigenous modernities, and intercultural encounter, exchange, and agency.
Laura R. Graham is Professor of Anthropology at The University of Iowa. Her current research focuses on politics of indigenous representation to broad publics among indigenous peoples of lowland South America, specifically Xavante of central Brazil and Wayuu of Venezuela and Colombia.
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