At the Vladem Contemporary, artists use light and color to express Indigenous Futurisms in their current exhibition Shadow and Light. Young Curator Ainsley Drinkard reviews.
This article is part of our Young Curators series, written by high school students taking part in SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators program.
Shadow and Light
September 23, 2023-April 28, 2024
New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary, Santa Fe
The exhibition Shadow and Light at the New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary uses light, shadow, and color to highlight one of the themes in the exhibition, Indigenous Futurisms, or “imagining the future from a Native perspective.”
Virgil Ortiz, of Cochiti Pueblo and one of the main Indigenous artists in the show, makes sculptures relating to Indigenous Futurism represented as protectors. His works portray protectors that time travel to the past to protect Indigenous people, but he still keeps the works traditional through the shapes and etchings on the sculptures and the black paint to age the sculptures. He successfully balances both traditional and futuristic ways of seeing Indigenous cultures and myths by doing this and shows how Indigenous cultures will continue to stay well into the future.
Shadow and Light explores light through illumination, absence, and reflection. Ortiz utilizes light patterns as well as the shape and carving designs on three shield sculptures, named Ha’pon (shield for Mitz), Ha’pon (shield for Jai), and Ha’pon (shield for Kailer) (all 2022), to make the artworks seem futuristic and connect to the theme of Indigenous Futurism. The lights contrast with the dark background making it look futuristic by illuminating the many little lights and because lights are seen as scientific.
However, the artist also made the shields seem older and ancestral by using black to age the blue and red colors. The lights on each shield are used to portray electromagnetic pulses that protect the user, and symbolize the protectors of the Tewa people, showing some of the Indigenous culture and myths in the work.
Erika Wanenmacher also incorporates embedded lights in her sculpture Stealth to Bring You Home (2007), from the series I Stole Stealth, Coyote Taught Me. The artwork is shaped like a stealth aircraft and painted black with lights that turn on and off, representing constellations in the night sky. Through this, she contrasts modern technology with traditional ways of navigation.
Both artists utilized light in their artwork, however Ortiz used light in a futuristic sense and Wanenmacher used light to represent a more traditional sense of showing Indigenous cultures and myths.
Spiritualism is also a big theme in the exhibition as shown in Norman Zammitt’s (Mohawk) and Emil Bisttram’s works. The bright colors in their paintings also help draw in and immerse the viewer.
Bisttram’s The Archetype (1974) looks especially futuristic with its bright colors, almost like it’s glowing, with overlapping shapes to represent spiritualism.
Bisttram uses color with intentionality: colors, forms, and symbols express both traditional and futuristic spiritualism. In the middle of his painting, Bisttram applies overlapping shapes and colors with white to express light and shadow to make his work futuristic. Towards the outside of the painting is a traditional mandorla (halo of sacred light) with astrological and mystical symbols to represent enlightenment or spiritual transcendence.
Similarly, Zammitt uses color to represent spiritualism and the New Mexican sky, exploring color as a way to portray light. He shows this by trying to represent New Mexico light through a gradient of different colors of acrylic paint in his works South Wall (1975) and Study for Gemini III (1975). The works apply math and structure to show color progression, to explore spiritual effects through color gradation, and to portray how New Mexico light is important to New Mexicans and Indigenous cultures here.
Zammitt and Bisttram use color in different ways, with shapes and lines, to represent light and its relation to spirituality, although Zammitt focuses more on New Mexican spiritualism compared to Bisttram who focuses on all spiritualism and enlightenment.
Overall Indigenous Futurism was a major theme in Shadow and Light, and to successfully portray this theme the artists used different techniques with light and color to connect to other ideas like spiritualism, light, and Indigenous protectors.
The Young Curators series is presented in partnership with SITE Santa Fe.
