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October 6, 2006
IAIA MUSEUM PRESENTS CONTEMPORARY INUIT ART FROM NUNAVUT, CANADA’S NORTHERNMOST PROVINCE
Can great art come from a place of vast emptiness? That depends on one’s definition of the word “empty”.
To the untrained eye, the Southwest’s sweeping landscape registers as a place of emptiness. It’s only upon closer inspection that the desert reveals itself to be teeming with an astounding diversity of living creatures and flourishing plants.
That same trick of the eye, one of initial misimpressions yielding to discoveries of complex realities, also applies to the landscape of Nunavut Province in the eastern region of Canada’s Arctic.
Stereotypes about Arctic desolation will be dispelled on October 21 when “Our Land,” the first major museum exhibition of contemporary works created by Inuit artists from Nunavut’s 808,185 sq. miles of recently-established (1999) territory is unveiled at the IAIA Museum in downtown Santa Fe.
Comprised of nearly 75 works of painting, sculpture, video, textiles and digital art created since 1950, “Our Land” presents Santa Fe’s art viewers with a rare look at the creative expressions of a thriving Indigenous culture unfamiliar to most outsiders, according to IAIA Museum curator Joseph Sanchez.
“This show marks first time this important collection of work from Nunavut has been seen in the West,” he said. “It’s art that has evolved from functional work into a range of new media as Nunavut’s artists have added to their skills and awareness.”
The exhibition’s works of art have been created by “Nunavummiut”, the Inuit people of Nunavut. The “Our Land” show was selected from the official Nunavut Collection of Art belonging to the Provincial government. “Our Land,” organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Government of Nunavut, Canada, is a nationally touring exhibition. Following its IAIA presentation the show travels to the Hood Museum of Art on the campus of Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire.
According to Louis Tarpardjuk, Nunavut’s Minister of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, the exhibition represents an opportunity to broaden widely held notions about the boundaries of Inuit creative genius. “Inuit culture, belief system(s), and the natural Arctic world provide Inuit (people) with seemingly unlimited subject matter for artistic expression. I believe “Our Land” clearly demonstrates this diversity,” he said.
“Our Land” focuses on Inuit perspectives in a broad range of subjects such as cosmology, spirituality, familial ties, sense of place, nature’s seasonal rhythms, the passage of time, and the importance of social gatherings.
In addition to expressions reflected in traditional media of painting, basketry, sculpture, carving, fiber art and jewelry, “Our Land” includes installations devoted to Inuit throat singing, storytelling and music. Among the exhibition’s highlights are a traditional “Inuksuk” (“likeness of a person” in Inuit language) erected in the IAIA Museum’s sculpture park by acclaimed Nunavut artist Peter Irniq, and a video installation titled “Nunavut” by Zacharias Kunuk, which was featured in Documenta 11, the cutting edge contemporary art fair staged in Kassel, Germany.
IAIA Museum Director John Grimes, who not only has traveled into Nunavut multiple times but also played a central role in bringing “Our Land’ to the Peabody Essex Museum for its U.S. debut, said the show’s quality of artistic execution and truthfulness of creative expression combine to make “Our Land” a moving and memorable experience for its viewers.
“Inuit culture fosters a deep appreciation of the subtle but important cues that affect life’s balance…cues not only from the environment, but from the human and spiritual realms. In keeping with such attentiveness, Inuit art is often beautifully sparing, understated, or detailed in ways that can escape passing notice,” said Grimes in his essay for the Our Land catalog, which will be sold through the IAIA Museum Store for $24.95.
In the same way that understanding Nunavut’s landscape mandates a more studied approach than a simple glance, so does appreciating the art created by Nunavut’s Inuit people compel the viewer to set aside time and energy beyond the cursory act of a passing notice.
Click here to download full press release in PDF format.
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