In Southwest Contemporary Vol. 9: Living Histories, guest juror Kalyn Fay Barnoski (assistant curator for Native art, Philbrook Museum of Art) reflects on the artists featured in this issue and how they engage with cultural, community, or familial histories.
The term “living history” ushers in a variety of ideas and understandings, as unique as the people who carry them forward. These living histories are present in the lives of those who carry them, participate in them, and pass them down. However, many of these diverse histories have not been shared to a broader public—forcibly removed by those in power or hidden for cultural preservation. Redacted histories by the socially dominant population were historically replaced with attempts at decontextualization and inauthentic ownership under the framework of discovery. Examples of this are visible in the Western canon of art history, as a whole. Lauded European artists like Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse appropriated imagery from Western Africa, while transplants to the Southwest, like the Taos Society of Artists, profited off depictions of the Indigenous peoples of the area.
Nevertheless, the people who hold the stories, and their truths, persist. If we look closely and engage deeply, they can be found embedded in the material culture of society: the stitches of a handmade quilt, the recipe of a matrilineal soup, the architectural blocks of a building, the patterns of a loom weaving. These embedded stories become the impetus for incredibly powerful works of art.
For Southwest Contemporary’s Living Histories issue, I was inspired by the submissions by artists who use their practice to engage deeply and expansively with their own cultural, community, or familial histories. The selected artists’ works upend expectations, including my own at times, and open up dialogue around the agency of storytelling. The breadth and diversity of our contemporary living histories are evident in this collection of works. These artists have created an important record for all, honoring past and future generations, through their unique perspectives and visual languages.
The ten artists featured in Living Histories are:
Tamara Burgh
Jacey Coca
Esther Elia
Andrew Ina
Chaz John
Marlowe Katoney
Jisun Myung
Jeannie Ortiz
Chip Thomas
Anne Yoncha
