When you are asked to imagine Native American art, chances are you might be less familiar with its artists.
However, in its final few days, the exhibit “Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now” at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art is hoping to challenge any preconceived notions. The exhibit is doing so alongside Choctaw singer/songwriter Samantha Crain, who will visit the museum on Jan. 9 at 5:30 p.m. to perform some of her award-winning music.
“I love visual art, and I really like any sort of experience or performance that takes me out of sort of the normal playing in clubs or theater sort of gig,” Crain said. “I'm in this to make connections with people on a really unique level, where it doesn't just get sort of repetitive.”
This is not the first time that Crain has lent her talents to a museum exhibit. Crain previously wrote and sang two songs for “T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America,” an exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum back in 2018. It was this exhibit, then open at the National Museum of the American Indian, that introduced Lou Brown, the director of programs at Duke’s Forum for Scholars and Publics, to Crain’s music.
Crain's music added depth to T.C. Cannon's work, making this exhibit memorable and special — qualities that the Nasher exhibit could benefit from, Brown said.
Brown said this exhibit is an opportunity to recognize all the ways that Native Americans are part of the modern world, something that she said sometimes gets forgotten.
For Marshall Price, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Nasher, the goal of the exhibit is to bring visibility to Native American art.
“It may be an unexpected exhibition for some who have a perception that Native American art is, let's say, more traditional or historic in nature,” Price said. “So, because of that we felt like it was really important to have contemporary Native voices presented in this way.”
Crain shared similar thoughts about the perception of Native American art today.
