Montclair Art Museum reinstalls Indigenous art from North America collection

The Montclair Art Museum (Montclair, NJ) introduces a sweeping reinstallation of its permanent collection of Indigenous art from North America on September 13, 2024. Completed in collaboration with Native artists, scholars, writers, educators, and other colleagues, “Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art” will display new and historic acquisitions in varied media across two galleries at the Museum, including the vaulted, newly renovated Roberts Gallery, which housed the collection when it was originally built in 1931.

Curated from a collection of more than 4,000 works—including pieces by Rose B. Simpson, Cara Romero, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Sarah Sense—the reinstallation will also feature site-specific interventions to MAM’s neoclassical architecture and sculpture, as well as specially commissioned large-scale contemporary works. The re-envisioned presentation centers Indigenous ways of knowing, promoting the power of Native peoples and art to shape the future. Structural updates to the space provide a fresh venue for the collection’s pieces from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, including regalia, ceramics, mixed media, basketry, paintings, works on paper, beadwork and quillwork, carvings, photography, and more.

As part of the new installation, MAM has commissioned five unique works by contemporary Indigenous artists: Backdrop (portrait of the artist obscured), a large-scale C-print by Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂, b. 1979); jaatłoh4Ye’iitsoh [17–18] + [][][][], two large, hanging soft sculptures by Eric-Paul Riege (Diné, b. 1994); Out In Front, a wampum medallion pendant by Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag, b. 1973); Haudenosaunee Lacrosse Stick, which may be the first artistically painted Native lacrosse stick to date, by Brandon Lazore (Onondaga Nation, b. 1981) and Jack Johnson (Akwesasne Mohawk, b. 1979); and What Was, What Is, What Will Be, a site-specific glass, metal, and fiber-based work across the two gallery spaces by Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation, b. 1968).

Additional works by Lenape artists include Cape of a Matriarch (2021)—an extraordinary turkey-feather cape with accompanying poetry by Rebecca Haff Lowry (Delaware Tribe of Indians, b. 1972)—as well as historical basketry and beadwork that reveal intimate stories of Lenape people.

“Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art” has been organized by Laura J. Allen, MAM’s Curator of Native American Art, under guidance by MAM’s Native American Art Advisory Council of leading curator–scholars and involving many Indigenous collaborators and contributors. Its title and exhibition design are inspired by Native forms of weaving, highlighting the fiber artworks on view and serving as a metaphor for the Indigenous knowledge woven through the installation.

As the Museum’s most significant project in recent decades, its aim is to build sustained, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous people and communities; to educate and empower Native and non-Native audiences; to advance the collection, presentation, and interpretation of Native art; and to support Indigenous artists, writers, students, and educators.

The reinstallation explores the transformative power of Indigenous knowledge—past and present—to address pressing social issues, including relationships to the earth and its beings, gender and family, sovereignty and justice, and the power of art itself. The collection includes work by Indigenous people of the United States and Canada, including Native American, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. The reinstallation emphasizes historically underrepresented Lenape and Northeastern artists, as well as women and queer and two-spirit artists.

As part of the project, MAM is also developing educational materials and training for teachers and community leaders as well as programs for families and the general public. As the country’s education systems address the teaching of Indigenous histories and contemporary cultures and practices, educators are in need of reliable resources. To address this need, MAM is working collaboratively with Indigenous educators and artists to prepare a broad set of curriculum materials that uses the art and knowledge in the exhibition to teach important lessons on Native art, cultures, history, and relevant issues that align with New Jersey State Learning Standards.

Upon its founding in 1914, MAM became one of the first art museums in the United States to collect and display historic and contemporary Native American art in a dedicated gallery alongside its non-Native collection. This reinstallation aims to be a thoughtful update of that ethos, centering critical thinking to redress colonial legacies and engage a wide public in historical and contemporary Native experiences.

Graphic design for the exhibition, including its custom typeface, is by Sébastien Aubin (Opaskwayak Cree Nation) / OTAMI – ᐅᑕᒥ.