The denim jacket is perhaps the most striking object in the “Water Memories” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is a Wrangler knockoff with a red felt thunderbird at the back and blue beads along the sleeves.
The exhibit is all about water and the way it is represented in Native American art. What does a jacket have to do with water?
Patricia Norby Marroquin (curator of the exhibit) said that the thunderbird is sacred to the Anishinaabe. It actually symbolizes a thundercloud.
She explained that the beading is water droplets. Rick St. Germaine (19 years old) and his mother, Saxon St. Germaine (Wisconsin), added the thunderbird and beading to The Lac Courte Oreilles Band, Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.
Rick St. Germaine wore this jacket during the Native American occupation at the Winter Dam in Wisconsin, in the early 1970s. Norby saw the jacket at a small museum in midwestern Wisconsin and decided she needed it to be in the exhibit. She wanted to show different generations of Native Americans, and to examine their activism around water.
Norby is PurA(c?)pecha. Her family is from Pueblo, Mexico. She is the museum’s first curator for Native American art, and “Water Memories,” her first exhibition at the Met, is her first.
Sylvia Yount (curator of the American wing at the museum), said to Norby that “I think [the exhibition] beautifully reveals you indigenous and environmental approach.”
A few years back, Native American art was mixed with art from other countries like Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. In 2017, Charles and Valerie Diker promised to loan the museum valuable gifts, donations, and loans from their collection. The museum’s Native American art was moved to the American Wing, Yount stated.
“Water Memories” is an accompaniment to the intricately-beaded clothing, and other objects in “Art of Native America”. But Water Memories tells a story.
Norby stated, “As you look through the exhibition, you’ll see that we are creating a current. A stream of stories and memories.”
This exhibit explores water’s multiple uses, including for fishing, travel, ritual, and play. It also highlights the political nature of water. American power companies have built dams on tribal land. A Cara Romero photograph shows two Native Americans submerged in water. According to the website, they are “still suspended in a drowned environment.” A documentary-style video by Cannupa Hanska Luger also shows a group of water protectors holding their mirrored shields on the Standing Rock Reservation. It is a giant water snake that they glide through the snow.
She said that Norby’s scholarship in art history is rooted in environmental activism. Her research has been focused on the connection between agriculture, fine art and water rights in Southwest. She said that although the Met may not have considered a political perspective before, it is something she has been doing for a while.
Norby stated, “I want people leave understanding that all of us have a responsibility to protect freshwater resources.” “That we all have close ties to water and that we cannot survive without it.”
Each object is connected to water in one way or another. The glass lamps were once filled with oil from whales. The intricate baskets were made by soaking the reeds into water. The exhibit is not anthropological, but it is fine arts. There are many beautiful, provocative objects in the museum. Fritz Scholder’s triptych of a beach scene with a sinister, black angel at its center, Truman T. Lowe’s canoe frame, and a pile with what appears to be hollow, shiny whale teeth on a dock.
Because of its personal nature, this piece by Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard is a favorite of Norby. She also loves the aesthetics of these teeth.
“They glow. They’re beautiful. They’re pearlescent. Because of their smooth texture, you almost want to touch them,” she explained. She laughed. “But we highly suggest that people not do that here in the museum.”
