Curator showcases Indigenous perspectives

Words like “variety” and “innovative” will hopefully describe the afterthoughts on Korea’s first-ever exhibition on Native American arts, an associate curator at the Denver Art Museum who helped organize the show said.

Dakota Hoska -- who holds dual citizenship from the US and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota -- said visitors to the exhibition “Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in America” would be able to discover the talent the Indigenous people had, building something from nothing.

“We’ve got everything from baskets to these giants and really beautiful huge wooden masks, and so just seeing the variety between like what the material cultures were between tribes is going to be really impressive for the audience,” Hoska said Wednesday, a day after the National Museum of Korea opened the four-month exhibit as part of the two museum’s joint efforts to boost ties.

Hoska, on a weeklong trip to Korea ending Friday, added, “You’re going to see some of the artwork, like the use of porcupine quills and the use of seal gut to create something so beautiful,” calling using quills and gut as “one strength, especially of Native artists all throughout time.”

The show exploring Native American life and arts through 151 pieces including paintings and clothing offers more, according to Hoska, who singled out how Native Americans could potentially help advance international conversation on matters like environmental sustainability.

“I feel like it’s so easy to kind of leave us in the past but the wisdom and the knowledge that we have can really contribute to the direction of the world in the future,” Hoska said, emphasizing that Indigenous people are a contemporary group.

“I think there’s a lot to learn for Western cultures from Indigenous nations,” said Christoph Heinrich, the DAM director, stressing the Native Americans’ respect for identifying the “need to earn nature and to earn the gifts from nature,” a mindset in increasing demand as countries around the world step up calls for stronger climate action.

Heinrich added that the US museum will showcase white porcelain pieces from Korea next year with moon jars taking center stage. The Denver Art Museum, housing some 300 pieces of Korean art with a separate space for their display, is currently showing Korean buncheong ceramics.

The National Museum of Korea exhibition on Native American arts, held through Oct. 9, will then travel to the Busan Museum for a four-month run ending in February.